KGCI: Real Estate on Air - 3 Powerhouse Books to Scale Your Real Estate Business and Income

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Summary:Ali Garced breaks down the three most influential books that transformed her real estate career from a rookie to a top producer. She shares how "Traction" helped her identify a "magic number" for daily lead generation, how "The Full Fee Agent" empowered her to stop chasing "shopper" leads, and how Alex Hormozi’s "Lost Chapters" taught her to reverse-engineer her best client experiences. This episode is a tactical roadmap for agents looking to implement retainer fees, automate lead warming through YouTube, and treat their practice like a scalable business.

Welcome back to another episode of the Agent Goldmine. Today, I am talking about my top books for real estate agents, the books that have helped me the most of my business. And a little bit of just shooting the shit between me and Shelby, who is currently frozen right now because I am in Harbin, China. And the Wi-Fi here is absolute garbage. but at least the soup dumplings are only $3.99. Shelby, how are you? Am I unfrozen? Are I better?

Yeah, you're no longer frozen, but your eyes are like super big the whole time. It was funny because you're like, Shelby's frozen. I was like, you're frozen. You're the one who's in like a bear suit right now trying to stay warm in a hotel in freaking China. So, yeah, where are you? What are you doing there? What is your life lately?

go. So this is my, I think this is my fourth country that I visited in the last month. And I did not expect to come to China. But my friends who are travel influencers, they were, they had made plans to go to Harbin. They were like, hey, do you want to come to Harbin? I was like, where is Harbin? It sounds like it would be in like Vermont. And I looked it up. I was like, oh, it's like, oh, it's like right near Russia. So it's freezing. They have a like winter festival where. people from all over the world come and it's like it's a straight up city of ice everything is made of ice so it's super cute see a lot of colors a lot of cold um which is exactly what i just left in minneapolis but um here i am exploring china and so far so good the prices are the prices are right i had to buy a coat though because i came from bali where it was 80 degrees to now negative 10 a literal 90 degree difference in temperature. I'm starting to sneeze. I think I'm going to get sick.

Oh my gosh. What an adventure. I love living vicariously through all of your Instagram stories. Never stop. And if you guys don't follow her on Instagram, you need to go to Allie underscore the underscore agent, which is her handle and it's A-L-I, not however other people spell Alley.

So there you go, hop over there and jump along for this ride because it sure is. And I love to hear that the prices are better there because, you know, I just got back from Cabo where I was expecting Mexican prices and, you know, like 20 street tacos for like a dollar. This was my expectation. And Cabo is actually more expensive than Lexington, Kentucky. So that was a little slap in the face for me.

It was fine. It was fine. Everything's fine. Yeah. Dude, like the food there was ridiculously expensive. Everything. A bottle of water, $5. So.

Oh, my gosh. I didn't know that. Shit. I'm going in March. I'm going next month. No, in two months. Shit. Go.

I have, I'll tell you where to go. Actually, I only have three places. You really barely left the hotel. But it was great. It was great. What else do you want to share about your travel and your life updates? You have wanted anything to share about like running a business from afar or we just want to hop into bucks. What do you want to do?

Even though I've been to four countries now, they're all on this side of the world. So the time difference has been the same as what it's been for the last month and half or whatever. The time difference I'm still getting a little bit used to. Like right now, we are recording this at 10 p.m. my time. And I took a red eye last night to get from Bali, Indonesia to China. So I haven't slept in what feels like 30 hours. I'm a little loopy and a little slow, more slow than usual. But I wasn't about to cancel on you like I did last time, Shelby. I'm so sorry. It's totally good. So like I'm still learning. time difference. So, like, I will go to sleep at, you know, like 10 p.m. my time, which is 10 a.m.

Eastern, but of course, Arizona, which is where I, where I work, it's a little bit early. It's a little bit too early. By the time I go to sleep, my clients aren't awake yet. But when I wake up, it's already like 2 p.m. or something like that, like their time. So they're in the middle of their day. and I always am waking up to like 60, 50 to 60 text messages, let alone emails. So there's pros and cons to that. The biggest pro, it's like batching, you know, instead of taking piecemealing one text at a time at 10 a.m. and then at 11 and then noon and another question, I wake up to all 65 text messages and I'm like, all right, bobo, bo, boom, boom.

And then I'm like, whoa, boom. And then I'm like, whoa, that's it. I'm done. The ball is now in their court for the rest of the day. So that's like the biggest pro. The con is it's all my fault where I will wake up in the middle of the night. And if I look at my phone, 2 a.m. here is noon there. And that's where they have questions.

So then my brain gets stimulated and then I can't go back to sleep. Completely user error. That's all my fault. But I'm still getting used to that. I think what you just said is like a really good point on the pros of just time blocking in general. And I know it's really hard for us to like put down our phone and get deep work done. But like if you can put down your phone and do deep work.

you're going to focus like crazy. And then when you come back to it, you can batch reply like Alley. And it is likely more efficient, more effective. I say likely it is. I know that there's always that fear of like a fire dropping the ball, whatever, whatever. Most of the time, like once you are in real estate for a while, you can predict almost every potential hurdle. You can see them coming. And so in that case, you can get ahead of them. And then when you put down your phone, you're not like, is anything, you know, going to catch on fire because what could really catch on fire that can't prevent a response at two hours later. So my TC has her own TC now practically. So it's like the three of us. And we're all in a group chat with every single client. And I like train my clients to not text me

individually, text the big group chat where it's me, both TCs, both buyer parties and the lender. So that way everyone is included. So that way the buck doesn't buck the puck? What is it? Something doesn't No idea. We're so bad with dang. We are terrible at, are they called idioms? That's called. It's so bad too.

That's fine. And Paul Revere. The buck puck does not stop at me. I don't even think that's how the rest of it goes either. I'm going to look at up. I'm going to say that from now on. So I feel like that has helped a lot. Like last night, my clients had a question as I was

falling asleep. I couldn't even like like text them back with like a coherent sentence. So I just texted in my separate group chat with my TCs. I was like, hey, can you just handle this for me? I've already spoken to title, but can you make sure that they actually end up calling title to get their questions answered? So it's stuff like that where I just like rely on them more and we've had that relationship. But that's again, another reason to have a TC that's like on it. Right. That's like willing to have those conversations and be client facing. 100%. And it will help you identify. too like if they couldn't step up and handle it then they're not the right fit that's good i love that lessons learned perfect let's pivot let's go let's talk about your five books my five books i actually

really have three so um and for those not though by the way random random point those not watching on youtube i just purchased because i came from my last point about my travels because i came from super super hot 90 degree of weather i didn't have a coat and so i I came to Harbin China where it's literally negative eight degrees when I hopped off the plane at like 2 p.m. And I needed to go shopping. So, but my head is still cold. My ears are still cold because I just like came back from the outside world. And it's so, it's so cold.

I purchased this little hat that literally everyone around here wears. So if you want to see me wearing a mouse, a cat hat, I don't know what this is, but everyone wears it. Like people are age. I was like, okay, let me buy one too. So now I'm fitting in. I love it. Never take it off. I'm never going to take it off.

Yeah. The thumbnail will be me in this hat. If you're on a 50-50 split, it's time to rethink your brokerage. At EXP, the split is 8020. And once you cap, you keep 100%. We show you how to get there faster. I'm Ali Garcette or Ali the agent. My sponsor, Shelby Johnson and I, each close over 40 deals a year.

We are full-time agents actively producing. And everyone in our upline is an icon agent. When you name us as a sponsor at EXP, you get full access to all of our systems and checklists and templates, our 200K GCI Playbook to help you make 200K your first year, direct mentorship and direct access to us, no huge group calls. We also help agents add another stream of income, which is RevShare. We will help you with all the tools and trainings you need to build revenue share that will help you retire early. If you're interested in building an actual business, book a call at theagentgoldmine.com. So my top three books as a real estate agent, I'm just going to jump right in.

Number one, I have spoken about before. And it is the book called Traction by Gino Wickman. It is such a solid. I've read it twice. And I'm not really one to reread books because I don't know why. So, but I have read that one twice, which says a lot. So there are so many things like nuggets, ideas, lessons that you can pick up from this book. But my biggest to this day is that everyone in an organization, no matter how big, should have a number assigned to them or a number that

they have created for themselves in order to progress the business in order to do their part of the business. So the book traction is like pretty, it's for like business. It's for like business. owners, right? I read it like when I first got licensed. So half of it didn't apply. I didn't, lead other people. It was, it's just me. Still kind of is just me. But my biggest takeaway from that was that number. So I looked up, you know, what would, what number would be most important for me at the time, a brand new agent in order for me to actually move the needle every single day? and a number that was a push, but also still realistic. I didn't want to feel defeated and like, you know, every day, especially starting out.

So I came up with the number six. And actually by I, Tom Ferry came up with the number six. I was thinking about like what number of conversations should I have every single day with people? What is a number that is sustainable? That's not too much. That's definitely not too little. And then I heard on a podcast by Tom Ferry, obviously four years ago. that the agent who has an average of six conversations about real estate every single day makes

$300,000 a year, GCI a year. So after that, I was like, boom, I don't even know if this stat is true. I don't even care if this stat is true. I believe it to be true. So therefore, let's make it work. So from there is where I got the number six. And that changed my business. Like I made sure that I did not go to sleep until I had six conversations about real estate

with either potential buyers or potential sellers. And then I also added potential agents that want to join our community and freaking make a lot of money. And I didn't go to sleep until I hit six. And that was my biggest takeaway. And that honestly, if you read the book, that's probably like 5% of what they talk about. They also talk about like making sure that you have weekly goals and quarterly rocks of what they call them or like, you know, annual goals. So like it's a really, really good. It's a really good book.

But that like one specific liner that I had from the book like really shifted my business, I think. To clarify for listeners, what the qualification of a conversation, it does not have to be like a verbal. You're not calling people. What is the, this can be text, Instagram DM, right? Tell me. It's easy to cheat yourself, right? It's easy to be like, oh, let me just like talk to my dad about real estate. Let me just talk to someone that I know, someone that's already a client about real estate.

So I made sure the requirements were someone who was not yet assigned by your client or listing client and the conversation itself could be in any format it could be or method um instagram facebook it could be a phone call it could be in person it could be the beginning of a conversation about real estate or it could be like the second part of it right because like you're not especially on instagram or online or even in person you may not have the full conversation about real estate in the first time that may be too much for them at the time but i counted every single one of those if i could actually make money i counted it and i wasn't going to cheat myself so did that click verify it further. Yes. That was perfect. Thank you. And I really like how simple that was. Because when you

first said traction, my mind, I just reread it before I rebuilt here in Lexington to like integrate things into the calendar and like, do they have so many different tools, you know, like the vision traction organizer, like the VTO and all these. And it can be really overwhelming. So I was like, oh, God, we're going to buckle up for this. And then you're like, well, it's one thing. And I was like, perfect. And it's such an actual. And it's literally one line in the whole book. Yeah. And I have to agree, I really do love traction for what you said, where it's like the very key measurables, but also like if slash when people out there are looking to build a team or have leadership involved, that is a big part of the book too, like Ali mentioned about how to find the

right people, for the right butts and the right seats all rowing in the right direction. So it is one to bookmark for multiple reasons. The second book I have is a book that I've always. also mentioned on this podcast before. And it is the reason why I started increasing my prices and have a cancellation fee and have a retainer fee for some clients. And that is the full fee agent. And I'm blanking on the author right now. But the full fee agent, I love this book so much. And actually, fun fact, Shelby, I've never even finished the book. I literally got to chapter like four. And I was like, this is amazing. In chapter two is where they talk about the fool or the favorite.

And this, we've spoken about a bunch on this podcast, too. Like, if you get a call from someone that saw your information on Google or on Facebook or on Zillor or whatever, and they're shopping you, you're not the favorite. Therefore, the book suggests don't even go on the appointment. And when I first heard that, I was like, what the hell? No, I have to compete. I got to win. I got to get the listing. I got to get the buyer.

But the book is like, if they're shopping you, they're probably not even going to work with you. So don't even waste your time. It's going to be an uphill battle, even if you get the listing, even when you get the buyer. It's then an uphill battle for the rest of the transaction. So after that, I think the very next day is when I got a phone call from someone that found me on Google, a stranger, complete stranger, like not military, no friends or family in common. And they were shopping. And I told them, I wanted the business. I wasn't like overwhelmed with business.

And so otherwise I would have said yes, but I was like, let me try this thing with this book here. And I was like, it seems like you're shopping around, which is perfect. I'm glad you're doing that. There are a ton of great agents in Tucson. If for some reason you don't match with those, then let's catch back up. But at this point, my schedule is too full right now. So I like pretty much I wish you the best of luck. And I like hung up the phone.

I was like, what the fuck did I just do? I was like, oh, I literally just kissed goodbye business. But it felt good. Even though that could have been a check, it opened up space for me to make more YouTube videos, for me to get clients that only want to work with me where there is no uphill battle. It's easy, peasy, and we're friends and it's friendly the whole time. And it's just like good vibes all around.

So after that, I started doing that every single time, every single time. And then Shelby, as you know, like we have our like the WhatsApp chats of of everyone in the community. And sometimes when people are, I don't want to say complaining, but when people are asking for advice of how to deal with a client or a lead, a lot of that like stress and the anxiety comes from those strangers.

The strangers that found them on Google that agents are like entertaining. And it's it's very, very hard to like to say no to business. Hence the reason to have a whole like lead gen method where you're getting good quality clients consistently coming in. I 100% agree that that alone in that book absolutely changed the game for me. And it is such a freeing feeling knowing that you don't have to chase, convince that people

aren't trusting you. They're skeptical of everything you say, leaving that all the way behind and focusing, using that time and energy that you would have spent literally chasing and not happy in the position to using all of that time to exactly like you said, build a way to make cold leads warm and hot and love you before they even speak to you. And then there's none. All of the bad goes away. All of the good comes into fold. And it's just this like really freeing feeling. So love, love, love. Anything else on that book? Are we on to three? I'll actually go into number three because they kind of overlap of what I did in my business. So the third book, it's the Alex Hormosey,

but it's the black book. The lost chapters book there. I'm still, I'm in the middle of it right now. There, that's when I learned even further. So like, for example, I do YouTube. So when someone finds me on YouTube, they've obviously at least watched one video. But I have found that the best clients of mine have watched eight videos. So when someone books a call on my calendar, and of course, that's self-reporting, right? They could say eight. It could be four.

It could be 15. Maybe they don't know. So, but the number that I see consistently is like is eight. So that's my goal because those are the clients that I. like doing business with. I've looked back and looked back at their answers and they've, they've all said that they've watched at least eight videos. So Alex Hormozzi in that black book, the $100 million lost chapter's book, I believe is what it's called. He says, take your best clients, reverse engineer it. What did they do before they became your best client and force that process for all of your future clients?

So now I force my clients to watch. Of course, I can't force them. I'm not in their living room. but I try to put eight videos worth of stuff like in front of them before they even meet with me on Zoom. So specifically what I do there is on my calendar or calenly, I ask them, how many videos of mine have you watched? And I recently added that question like maybe like six months ago, eight months ago. So if it's anything less than eight, I know I'm going to text them. Like as soon as I get that message on my tax on my Google calendar and it says anything less than eight, I'm going to take my latest video or my most popular video or both and text it to them and say, Hey, Shelby, I saw that you just booked a call.

I'm super excited to meet with you next Tuesday at 5. In the meantime, before we meet, please make sure that like you watch this video, you and your spouse watch this video as well as this one because this one talks about crime and this one talks about the market right now. I look forward to seeing you soon. And so that way it's just like getting just. more videos in front of them to get to that eight. So that's part one of what I of the change of what I made. And then the other part is in my calendar sequence, my email sequence, I added more of my YouTube videos as part of their like homework to watch, like the series throughout. So when they,

when someone books a call on my calendar, they automatically get an email back saying, I'm excited to work with you. Here's like four videos right now on that buyer email intro one, a little bit of like background about Tucson, background about me, that I started to work with them. And here's some stuff about crime. Here's some stuff about schools. Here's some stuff about Davis-Mont and Air Force Base. But I'm like just throwing more videos in front of them to get to that eight. Whether or not they have eight. If they already have eight, great, then watch 12 of my videos. That was my way of trying to reverse engineer that to get everyone up to at least eight. I have a question. I have not read this book, which this is cool. I'm like, oh, now I need to go. Allie.

added another one to my list. For you specifically based on this, when you think about your best clients and the fact that they've watched eight videos, when you are qualifying what is your best client, how are you qualifying that? Okay, good question. Two factors. One was how much I got paid. And also would I want to work with them again? Did I actually like it? That was it. I just kept it very simple. Okay. Gotcha. And the how much you got paid? So that was price point. Essentially? Yeah. GCI. Okay, gotcha. Y'all, I was thinking about the price point that the client was looking for you know what I mean? Because I'm thinking, of course, Alie, you're saying this and now I'm like a listener and I'm like, oh, how do I implement this in my business? But when I thought of best clients,

the two things immediately were like my favorite people to work with were also in the highest price points just because those are the people who are less strung out about every penny. They appreciate your value so much more because they're usually a professional in the business and they recognize, you know, quality. And they don't try to nickel and dime you. They're never, You know what I mean? There's just like so many factors that that. And so I was asking that what your qualification was. But it sounds like they are the same. We just titled them differently in our heads. Yeah, I think so. And then those best clients of yours had all watched eight videos. That's the only thing that they had in common. Well, that's the main thing that you could control that they had

in common. I could tell like when we jumped on the Zoom call, like I would start saying the same things that I've said in all my videos because YouTube is just repetition. And then they were just like not. Or they would like finish my sentences. And I'd be like, okay, great. Like you actually. you're not just saying that you watched like you you're with me you paid attention that feels good you took no yeah okay gotcha okay perfect i love that so i totally derailed us i'm trying to bring us back now so the took the took out of it is that best clients reverse engineer it forced that process on all your future clients do we cover that one do we check it yeah that's it yep okay that's awesome do you are any more nuggets that you've gotten from his book so far i know you're not done with it yet

I actually have it in my book bag. There are more, but that's like the biggest, the biggest one so far. Yeah. Oh, wait, actually. No, no, no, no. One more thing is he talks a lot about front loading cash. So in a business, of course, like the businesses that like he helps with a lot, like have like physical supply and overhead, a lot more overhead than we do.

But in order for a business to be successful, you want to make sure that you are making as much cash in the first 30 days in order to then have. one client pay for another client. So essentially getting clients for free. So in real estate, that's a little bit hard because typically, real estate agents don't get paid until they close in a house. And that's like three, four, six, nine months later. So that's where I started thinking and being a little bit more aggressive with the retainer fee and just like brainstorming other ideas about how could I get some cash up front in order for my upfront cash to then offset or be able to pay for even more clients, have that one client that came in, pay for my next client. And so just on like

random numbers that I have not practiced. Well, the retainer fee I have practiced that. That's like 500 bucks for investor clients. And of course, talk to your broker, make sure that you're not discriminating for our case, or at least for my case in Arizona. I can request a retainer for any single investor client. And that's not discrimination. I don't do that for VA loans at this time. So that, getting 500 bucks before I even show anybody at house, that helps because that. is what I pay for two videos. And for every two and a half videos I post, I get another client. So I'm like almost, almost there with those numbers. But then other ways for me to get upfront cash, what I was thinking about is like some sort of same day, some sort of guarantee, right? Like, hey, if you want to to guarantee that you get into a house the same day or the same morning or within 10 hours or whatever the number may be, again, I haven't practiced this. I'm still thinking it through. But then at that point, it's going to be X, Y, Z up front. And then at that point, it's going to be X, X, Y, up front, $499 bucks up front. And that gets you a guarantee. And that's essentially a retainer, but you're explaining it. I would be explaining it as a guarantee that no matter what, if you see a house at

10 at like, I don't know, 4 p.m. We're going to get in there. As long as the seller agrees, of course, as opposed to waiting for the next business day, like my team and I, I will make sure that I get you inside the house. That's how I've been thinking about like how else, how else I can get some upfront cash. And of course, that would be taken from the commission. It's not like, it's not adding on to the commission. It's just upfront cash now so that client can fund more. And I've heard him talk about that before and hadn't thought about how I would bring it into my own business. So cool to hear the examples you're talking through. And for listeners out there, just some of you are thinking that Ali's insane.

And I know this. Like where she's talking about like retainer fees up asking for money up front, getting more than, you know, what is culturally normal in your market for commission. You know, instead of 3%, it's 4, whatever. Literally, this is blowing the minds of probably the majority of listeners. I would say. And I think this all goes back to what we talked about in the full fee agent where you are either the fool, which that's full, F-O-O-L, or the favorite. And if you are the favorite, if they come in knowing the only agent I want to work with is Allie, because I have watched eight plus videos. I feel like she's my best friend who lives in my pocket and I can turn on

my TV at night. And she's the only one for me. Then that is when you have the leverage to then in turn be like, hey, this is just a part of our process. We have a retainer fee. And if you want priority guarantee for whatever, this is what it costs and this is our commission. And then they're just like, yes, Ali, whatever you say, I will do it. So that is the difference. And if you're thinking, I could never charge this, it goes back to what are, how are you getting your clients? Because if you're, if you're warming them up enough up front, then you have the power. I'm still thinking back to when you said fool F-O-O-L. How else would you spell it? Oh, my God. Well, when you say it, this is great literally every time I think,

played it on like a WhatsApp video from our you know Five Pillars Nation we have all these WhatsApp chats in our community um when you say it he always thinks full F-U-L-L like the title do I say it like that well I don't know if it's you or if he's well it is a from Sopracota well I mean the title is full fee agent right when it's like you're the full or the you're the favorite then he's always like the full what do you mean I'm the full I'm like it's the fool That's so funny. Okay. I get it out.

Yeah. So if any of listeners are out there from South Dakota, although I should not put you in a box, this is, if any of you were like Drake, then that was for you. Okay. The spelling. Now we out here sounding like fools. I know. It's all good.

We always do. Yes. Those are my, those are the three books. But then also I want to, I want to give my friend a shout out who's writing her third book right now. You know where two. Rachel Richards. author of Money, Honey. And so not real estate agent related, but finances, financial independence.

And she's writing a book right now on pre-ups and post-ups and the importance of it. So that one's coming out soon. But she has like, she puts so much detail into her books. So if you wanted a little bit of break from business and more into just general finance and investing, I would go that route, Rachel Richards. Love it. Okay. And yeah, I don't think we have any nugget for this show. But in case you guys didn't know, we have at theagentgoldmine.com, we have a gold mine of nuggets. And nuggets are checklists and tools and products and PowerPoint slides and all of the things that you're like, God, that would be really cool to have, but I don't want to build. Guess what? We have it for you for free. So go to the agent goldmine.com, get access and download to your heart's desire in exchange for a five-star review for the show. Apple or Spotify, you better do it. And otherwise, Ali, anything?

If you are watching on YouTube, please comment on this video. And please let me know what kind of hat am I wearing? Like, what animal is this? I don't know. So let me know. Be a bro and share this show. If you're on a 50-50 split, it's time to rethink your brokerage. At EXP, the split is 8020.

And once you cap, you keep 100%. We show you how to get there faster. I'm Ali Garcette or Ali the agent. My sponsor shall be. Johnson and I each close over 40 deals a year. We are full-time agents actively producing, and everyone in our upline is an icon agent. When you name us as a sponsor at EXP, you get full access to all of our systems and checklists and templates, our 200K GCI playbook to help you make 200K your first year, direct mentorship and direct access to us, no huge group calls. We also help

agents add another stream of income, which is RevShare. We will help you with all the tools and trainings you need to build revenue share that will help you retire early. If you're interested in building an actual business, book a call at theagentgoldmine.com.