#35 RE Prospecting - The Five-Minute Window

Hi ,

One of my agents had a listing appointment last week. He called me before, nervous and excited, wanting to run through it one more time. We talked it out, he went in, and he nailed it. Called me after, pumped. I told him, don’t drive away yet. Sit in that car for five minutes. Send the sellers a thank you text. Call the next person on your list while you still feel this good. Record a quick video about what you just learned. He did all three. Five minutes. Three touches. 

That’s the difference between busy and building. We lose our best momentum right after a win because we think the job’s done. It’s not. The follow-through is where your business compounds. It’s never the agents with the best scripts or the shiniest tech stack that win long term. It’s the ones who use the energy while they’ve got it, in that small window before the moment passes. After your next appointment or showing, give yourself five minutes before you move on. Send the follow-up. Make the call. Record the thought. Don’t let that energy walk out the door without you.

And speaking of showing up,  where are people actually finding you right now? Because if the answer isn’t Google, we’ve got a problem. I spoke at a real estate office last month and asked the room how many of them had updated their Google Business Profile in the last thirty days. Maybe three hands went up out of forty agents. One of them hadn’t posted an update in eleven months. Last review from 2023. No current photos, no market updates, nothing. I told them that it's like a restaurant with dusty windows and a closed sign wondering why nobody’s walking in. 

Google isn’t one thing anymore. Your Business Profile feeds your local rankings. Your YouTube videos get pulled into AI answers at the top of the page. Your reviews shape whether you’re recommended when someone in your zip code searches for help. Almost half of all Google searches have local intent, and most end without a single click because people get what they need right there. If your name isn’t the answer, you’re not in the conversation. This week,  update your profile, add a photo, post about your market, and ask a client for a review. Treat Google like the front door of your business. Because that’s exactly what it is.

And it doesn’t stop at Google anymore. A buyer in Westlake Village told me recently that before reaching out to any agent, they asked ChatGPT who the best agent near them was, then went to Google to cross-reference what came up. That’s the new referral. People aren’t just asking friends and coworkers anymore. They’re asking AI. And here’s what should take some pressure off: about forty-four percent of what AI cites comes from your own website and roughly forty-two percent from your business listings. You’ve already got control of most of it. Make sure your name, brokerage, service areas, and contact info match everywhere: Google, Zillow, Realtor.com, your website, social media. 

Then ask your web person one question: “Are AI bots allowed to crawl my site, and do I have schema markup?” That single phone call could change your discoverability for the next five years.

So you know you need to be visible, but where do you actually show up? This is where I see agents trip over themselves every week. Someone tells me social media doesn’t work and when I look at what they’re doing, it’s the same post copied across five platforms. That’s like wearing a three-piece suit to a backyard cookout. You’re there, but you’re missing the room. Facebook’s where community happens, Groups and local conversations. Instagram’s where you build the personal connection through Reels, Stories, and DMs. TikTok’s pure reach, the algorithm doesn’t care about your follower count, just whether your content connects in the first two seconds. YouTube’s the long game where a video today can bring you a client three years from now. LinkedIn’s credibility with decision-makers. Substack’s the only place you own the relationship outright. You don’t have to be everywhere. Pick two or three that match how you naturally communicate and bring something real wherever you show up, something that moves somebody, changes how they think, or makes them feel like someone out there gets what they’re going through.

But underneath all the strategy and the platforms and the technology, don’t lose the thread. I wrote in Real Estate Prospecting that the agents who build the biggest businesses aren’t the ones chasing the most leads. They’re the ones who go deep with the people already in front of them. I believe that even more now. I had a closing last month where the buyers told me they’d picked me because of a handwritten note I left after an open house two years ago. Two years they held onto that note. They remembered how it made them feel. Every review, every video, every DM, every market update, those aren’t marketing tactics. They’re relationship deposits. And they compound into the one thing no technology can fake: trust. This week, reach out to five people in your database with zero agenda. Don’t pitch. Just check in. That’s prospecting at its highest level.

And if you’ve read all of this and you’re sitting there thinking “I know what I should be doing, I’m just not doing it”, this part’s for you. The agents who build real careers aren’t the ones who waited until they’d figured it out. I remember my hands sweating a lot the first time I stood on a stage. I remember almost deleting my first YouTube video, actually I think I did. I remember driving to my first listing appointment convinced they’d never pick me. But I went anyway. And showing up’s what built everything else, the confidence, the competence, the community, and the career. Your morning routine, the call you don’t feel like making, the video you’re nervous to post,  those small acts are the compound interest of a career that matters. 

Don’t wait for the perfect script or the right market. You’re enough right now. Show up today and let the work shape you. That’s the whole game.