KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Fix the Business Leaks Before You Chase More Leads

Episode Date: October 23, 2026

Summary:In this episode, host Kevin Kaufmann explains why real estate agents and team leaders frequently struggle with growth not because they lack leads, but because their business has hidden operational leaks. He breaks down common profit killers, including poor speed-to-lead follow-up, neglected databases, unasked-for appointments, low agent productivity, and ego-driven revenue without profit. Agents will learn a step-by-step framework to diagnose constraints, measure performance, and systematically plug holes to scale profitability.

Welcome to Next Level Agents, the podcast that's all about breaking barriers and building empires. I'm Kevin Kaufman and together with my crew bringing you straight up fire. Interviews with top tier agents, game changing thinkers, plus the strategies and mindset shifts to dominate in real estate. Whether it's personal growth, leadership packs, or next level tactics, we've got you covered. So tell me, what does the next level look like for you? Buckle up because we're about to take you there right now. Welcome back to the Next Level Agents podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Kaufman. It's been a while since I've been on here, at least solo, took a nice little vacation. And I'm back. So today, I'm just going to jump into it. I'm going to talk about the things that we need to do before we need to do other things. In other words, we're going to fix leaks before we chase more leads, as I like to call it. And this is an important business lesson that I've come across and have seen show up to be true. Because if you're like most real estate, state agents, most business owners, brokers, entrepreneurs, whatever, you've caught yourself saying

some sort of version of, I need more leads, I need more opportunities, I need more marketing, I need to post more, and maybe that's true, but maybe it's not. Like, what if the problem isn't that you need more? What if the problem is that you're losing what you're already bringing in? And so that's what today's episode's about. We're going to talk about the hidden leaks inside of your business. The places where opportunities, money, relationships, referrals, appointments, and profit, most importantly, are quietly slipping through cracks. And if you can learn to identify and fix those leaks, you may discover that your next level is not hidden in more activity or something new. You may discover, as one of my coaches

said to me, everything you need for your business is already inside of your business. all right let's dive in imagine you're carrying a bucket full of water up a hill you've probably heard this story before or imagine this before now imagine that bucket that you're carrying has got some holes in it some holes are near the top some are in the middle some are all the way at the bottom and every time you walk up that hill every time you fill up that bucket and every day you work hard and every time you get to the top of the hill, that bucket hardly has any, if any, water left in it. Well, if that was really your problem, what would be the answer?

I think most people would say, get more water, fill the bucket faster, get a bigger bucket, carry two buckets. But that's not actually the problem. The problem is the holes in the bucket, the leaks, right? Because if the bucket has enough leaks, there's no amount of additional water that's going to solve the issue. I think that's exactly where many real estate businesses find themselves. Their answers become things like, I need more Zill leads, or I need more pay-per-click,

I need, I need ISAs, I need to recruit more, I need more, systems, I need more technology, more coaching, more, more, more, meanwhile, the opportunities that we already have are leaking out all over the ground. see I believe your business is perfectly designed for the results you're currently getting and I know that can sting a little bit I don't necessarily like hearing that either when I think about the stuff that's not optimal in my business but it's true your business is perfectly designed to produce the results that you're currently getting see if you're closing 20 transactions a year it's because you've designed a business to close 20 transactions a year if you're closing 200

you've designed a business that closes 200 if recruiting is slow if your system is producing slow recruiting. If your agent productivity is low, your system is producing low agent productivity. Now, before you get defensive, this is not me blaming. I'm not trying to place blame. This is about ownership.

Because if the system created the result, then the system can create a different result. And to me, that's empowering. See, most businesses don't have a lead problem. They've got a leak problem. Talk about the biggest leaks that I see out there. Lead leak, right? This one's obvious.

Kind of already referenced it. Right. This is everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I can't tell you how many times I've heard these leads suck. The quality of those leads are terrible. We need better leads. Maybe.

But before we declare the leads bad, let's ask a few questions. How fast were they called? How many times were they called? How many texts were they sent? How many emails were they sent? How many actual conversations were had with those people? How many appointments were. were attempted or scheduled or held.

How many follow-up attempts happened after day one? Because what I see over and over again is that agents call twice, maybe text wants, get no response, and they pronounce the lead bad. Meanwhile, another agent picks up the same lead and closes a deal. What's the difference? Well, the second agent followed up because the money is buried in the follow-up, not the lead source, not where the lead came from.

I've seen databases full of leads that haven't been touched in six months, 12 months, even longer. And then somebody finally calls them and they find an active buyer or seller. Think about that. The opportunity was there the whole time. It's just that nobody else was looking for it. So here's my questions for you and possibly for your team, but definitely for you. What's our speed to lead? Ask yourself that.

What's our speed to lead? How many attempts are we making the first week? of a new lead. How many leads do I have that are untouched? How many agents are hoarding leads on my team? And they're not actually getting the calls they need. Because before you go out and buy more leads, make sure you aren't leaking the ones that you've already paid for.

All right, let's talk about the database leak. Because this can be an expensive leak too for the business because it's invisible. the database is usually the most underutilized asset that an agent owns. I mean, think about it this way. If you owned a restaurant and every single customer had to be brand new every day, how hard would that be? Right? I mean, you'd go broke.

The best businesses in the world thrive because customers come back and they bring their friends. Real estate should work the exact same way. Yet I feel most agents all the time, we've got these entire data. databases and they think it just it's all from internet leads nothing from past clients nothing from referrals nothing from their sphere nothing from their relationships and to me that's a that's a leak in their business it's a massive leak i believe every transaction should create a future opportunity every client should know what you do how you help who you're looking to help how they can support grow your support and grow your business not like in a weird way not in a salesy way but in a very

human way. The best referral conversations don't sound scripted. They sound authentic. They sound like someone who genuinely loves helping people and wants to help more. All right. Let's talk about the next leak, business league, the appointment leak. See, conversations don't actually pay the bills. Appointments do. This is where a lot of agents get stuck. They can have a conversation. They can build a rapport. Maybe they can even be likable, but they don't ask for the appointment. They don't move the relationship forward. They don't ask the next question.

They never create momentum in the sales process. And what I've learned is that most agents, at least a lot of agents don't necessarily have a confidence problem, although that is certainly something a lot of a struggle with, but they have a language problem. They don't know what to say. And to me, that's why role playing matters. That's why scripts matter.

That's why coaching matters. not because we want to make people sound robotic, but because confidence can come from clarity, and clarity comes from repetition. The next leak in the business is the conversion leak. Say your agents are setting appointments. Great. Now what?

Because appointments alone don't pay the bills either. Signed appointments, signed clients do. Closings do. Results do. And I see teams all the time celebrate activity. Don't let me wrong. I think it's important. activity matters.

But also, we do have to at some point measure outcomes, right? If you've got an appointment that goes on 20 appointments and doesn't sign anybody, that's not a lead problem. It's not a database problem. It's not a conversion problem. Like, we've got to diagnose the actual issue. Sometimes that means training, shadowing, role playing, maybe partnering that agent with a more experienced agent. But we have to know where that problem exists.

because if you if you don't narrow it down if that if that agent susie is getting all these appointments but they're not signing anybody you you know that getting the appointment's not the problem you know that getting on the phone is not the problem you know that getting people to show up is not the problem it's out the appointment that's the problem so you got to be able to narrow that down if you don't narrow that down you're just guessing leak the next leak is the productivity leak this one's for team leaders having agents isn't the goal i know we talk about about recruiting a lot, but having agents isn't the goal. Having productive agents is the goal.

A lot of organizations celebrate headcount. And it's important, right? But also productivity. Like that's important. How many those agents are active? How many those agents are setting appointments and generating opportunities and actually serving clients? Are they using the CRM?

Are they following your standards? They actually producing? Because production, not headcount, is really what drives growth. And while I just said that, I'm going to talk about the recruiting leak next. This is something I believe in deeply. Most recruiting problems are just relationship problems. Think about it.

Most leaders are trying to harvest relationships that they've never planted. They want recruits, but they haven't built any relationships with the marketplace. They want appointments. They haven't built any trust. They want commitment, but they haven't provided. any value. See, recruiting gets dramatically easier when you consistently invest in people long before they're ready to make a move. See this over and over again. The best recruiters I know, they're not chasing. They're cultivating. They're planting. They're watering. They're nurturing. And then eventually

they're harvesting. All right. Next leak, the profit leak. This one's sneaky because revenue, top line, GCI. That gets all the attention. Revenue is exciting. GCI is flashy, right? GCI gets posted on social media, but it's a profit that pays your bills. I've seen business double revenue and literally take home less money. I've seen teams grow transaction count and become less healthy financially. Because every dollar that comes in isn't equal. We've got to understand things like cost per lead, cost per appointment, cost per closing. It's my gross margin. What's my net margin? It's my operating expenses. And most importantly, where are we spending money that is not creating value?

Because revenue without profit is just an expensive, ego-driven activity. So what's the framework? How do we actually fix leaks? Simple. Here's the framework. Step one, name it. What exactly is my problem? Not the symptom.

What is the actual problem? And we've got to measure it. You've got to put a number on it, right? because if you can measure it, you can improve it. If you can't measure it, you'll never improve it. Step three, you got to assign it. Who's going to own this? Maybe it's you.

Maybe it's a team member. Somebody owns it. Step four, you're going to inspect it. What gets inspected gets improved. And then number five, we're going to improve it. We're going to make adjustments until the performance changes. And then we're going to move on to the next leak because there's always going to be more leaks. Right. And you can't just go fix all leaks at one time.

In fact, that might be the most important lesson of this episode. You don't have to fix everything right now. In fact, you shouldn't. You just pick one. Just one. The biggest one. The one that would create the biggest impact. Fix that one.

When you fix it, go fix the next one. When you fix that one, go fix the next one. You can't solve 20 problems simultaneously. Because if you try, you're going to actually solve none of them. Momentum will come from focus. So as we wrap up today, I want to leave you with one question. What's the biggest leak in your business right now? Not the thing that's like most annoying or the easiest to blame.

Like what's the real leak, the bottleneck, the constraint, the place where opportunities quietly escaping you every day because your next breakthrough might not come from more leads. It might not come from getting more agents on the team. It might not come from new marketing. It might just come from plugging one of those holes, plug in one of those leaks, one neck, one leak, one bottleneck, one constraint. And if you can do that consistently, you'll wake up six months from now with a business that

feels lighter, stronger, more profitable, and a whole lot more scalable. All right. So today, thank you for joining me on the Next Level Agents podcast. Hope this was good for you. We'll see you next time. That's a wrap for this episode of the Next Level Agents. I'm Kevin Kaufman, and we've just dropped some. serious heat with my crew to level up your real estate game. What does the next level

look like for you? Subscribe to the podcast now so you don't miss a single strategy and head over to next level agents.com. Check out our events tab so you can find out all the information on our next virtual and in-person mastermind calendar. Let's keep this momentum rolling. See you next time.