KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Why Most Agents Give Up Too Early

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Don’t miss out! Subscribe to this podcast now for actionable strategies and expert insights from over 1,500 on-demand episodes.SummaryDiscover the harsh reality behind why so many real estate agents give up too early and learn the proven strategies to beat the odds. This episode unpacks the most common reasons for early failure—from unrealistic expectations and inconsistent income to a lack of a clear plan and the support needed to succeed. Whether you're a new agent or a seasoned professional looking for a reality check, this is your guide to building resilience, implementing systems, and establishing the long-term career you envisioned.Bullet Point TakeawaysUnrealistic Expectations & The Financial Reality: Most new agents enter the business with a "get rich quick" mentality, underestimating the time, effort, and financial investment required. Learn to budget for inconsistent commission checks, create a savings plan, and understand that success is a marathon, not a sprint.Lack of Leads & a Consistent Pipeline: The number one reason agents fail is the lack of a steady stream of clients. Discover how to move beyond waiting for leads to proactively building a pipeline through consistent prospecting, effective marketing, and a strong online presence that keeps you top-of-mind with potential clients.Failure to Develop Essential Skills & Systems: Getting your license is just the first step. Learn why success depends on mastering skills not taught in a classroom, such as adaptability, negotiation, and resilience. Discover the importance of a clear business plan and a consistent lead follow-up system that turns contacts into clients.Poor Time Management & Work-Life Balance: The freedom of a real estate career is a double-edged sword. Without a solid time management system, agents can quickly become overwhelmed, leading to burnout. Learn to establish clear boundaries with clients, prioritize high-impact activities, and strategically allocate time to avoid exhaustion.The Importance of Mentorship & Brokerage Support: The vast majority of new agents are left to "figure it out" on their own. Learn how to beat the odds by finding a supportive brokerage with robust training and mentorship, as well as building a strong network of peers and coaches who can provide guidance and accountability.Topics:Real Estate Agent Failure RateWhy Realtors QuitNew Agent Success TipsReal Estate Career ChallengesOvercoming Real Estate BurnoutCall-to-ActionReady to beat the odds and build a lasting real estate career? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and learn how to avoid giving up too early! Take your business further with the KGCI Real Estate On Air mobile app. Download it for free on iPhone and Android—just search ‘KGCI’ in the Apple App Store or Google Play.Grow your business with KGCI Real Estate On Air

Hey there, real estate pro. You ready to keep growing your business? While you found KGCI Real Estate on Air is more than 1,500 on-demand podcast packed with actionable strategies, expert advice, and tips from top performing agents. But if you want to keep growing, first, make sure you subscribe to this podcast right now so you don't miss a single episode. Then take your business at that next level by downloading the KGCI Real Estate on Air mobile app. Available for iPhone and Android, it's the perfect companion wherever you go. Just search KGCI in the Apple App Store or Google Play. and let's build success together. With any objection, if you don't answer it at least three times until they're about to like

literally hang up on you, then you are literally setting yourself up for, I mean, I don't know, if you like that kind of pain, just punch yourself and then chip in the throat and you'll be okay with it because you're setting yourself up for pain when you don't set the appointment and then have to chase people down. Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd. Be Uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor Chris Craddock and Jeff Safright.

Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. I'm your host Chris Craddick and I am super pumped to have a buddy of mine. He, He has joined forces with us in our Gain Network, Global Agent Investor Network, part of EXP. And he has been an investor for a while. He's getting kind of his business rolling. And he's gotten licensed in the last year. And he is looking to absolutely blow the barn doors off. And so with that said, I thought, what better thing to do than just have a public coaching session?

Let's hear what it is when Colby is willing to be vulnerable for everybody. Here's the question for you, Colby. This is what I always ask when you start. Will you give me freedom to say any of my thoughts and not hold back and know that this comes from a place of me wanting you to get better and not as a way to hurt your feelings? Absolutely. Boom. All right.

Game on. So now I have the freedom to say what I'm thinking. And even though I try to still be nice, I'm way less nice when I have that freedom to go. So, boom. All right. So first day, Colby, in real estate in the last 12 months, how much money have you made? I have made about 30,000. 30,000.

All right. What is the goal? How much would you like to make in the next 12 months, starting today? Starting today. Let's say 90 days from today. because anything you do today, you will not see the results until about 90 days from today. So 90 days from today and then the rolling 12 months after that. Yeah, 90 days from today, my goals would be target would be 30,000, another 30,000 and automate my.

No, no, no. So 90 days from today, go. So what is that? Like we're in August right now. So we're talking September, October, November. So from November to November, how much would you like to, what would be the goal? The goal will be 200. 200.

All right. Cool. And then what is the, I mean, I know it's great, but if you're going to just close your eyes and say, okay, this is my dream number. What is the dream number? 600. 600. Okay.

Cool. Now, here's the thing. You just fold us what your current ceiling is. So whatever that number is, is. the ceiling. So, and I'll just tell you for me personally, years ago, when I had to write that down, when I was first starting, I was like, man, if I could make $400,000, and that was pre-inflation, so it's probably about, about the same amount as your $600. And you want to know where I got capped for three years? Where? $400,000. So that, and the reason why was because I set that ceiling there.

I was a $400,000 person in my mind, you know, and that was. was my net income for a number of years, like when I first was in the business. Because I had a goal, I was like, okay, six figures. Then it was, okay, man, if I made 400, life would be different. In a way, it was different, but it was also not quite as different as you think, because as you're growing a business, if you make 400,000, then 50% goes to the government and you're left with 200. And then, you know, you use 200 to both grow your business and live on and try to pay for

all the things that you'd want to pay for going forward. So 600. And I'll tell you, I would say, think about how you can bump that up in your mind. All right. So 200 is a goal. 30 in the last 12 months. You want to go to 200. So we're talking about what? About 7xing what you did in the last 12 months. All right. So I had a mentor of mine who said to me early on in my life and career, wasn't in real estate. he was doing some mentorship with me and he said, okay, I want to see your calendar and I want to see your checkbook. That was back when we had checkbooks. I want to see your calendar and the checkbook because these two things tell me what you

care about most. You can tell me you care about other things, but the amount of time you spend on something and the amount of money you spend on something tells me exactly what you care about. So if you care about like charities or organizations and you don't volunteer any time and you don't donate to them, you don't care about. Let's just be honest, right? If you care about your business and your time is not spent in your business and your money spent growing your business, then you don't care about.

That's just the deal. And you got to be honest with yourself, right? That's step one of the 12 steps is like admit you're an alcoholic, right? Have a real thing. And I think step four is like a fearless moral inventory. Be fearless in your inventory. So with that said, let's jump into the thing that will dictate your success. more than anything else, your schedule.

What time do you wake up? I wake up around 6.30. Okay. So you said around, what does that mean? Set my alarm for 6.30 and I make sure, I, truthfully, I set up for 5.30, but having some struggles. So I get up no matter what at 6.30, no matter what, the latest 6.30. Okay.

So let's start with the first conversation here. So you set your alarm for 530, but you don't get up at 5.30. So you're telling me the first thing you do in the morning is you break your promises to yourself. Exactly. So that was one of the habits I decided a few years ago was, actually, I think it was last year, the beginning of last year was I will never hit snooze again. And I haven't hit snooze since. And man, there are been mornings that I have dragged.

But I'm not going to be a promise breaker. I'm a promise keeper. That's who I am. I keep my promises. And inside, I know that I'm starting my day like that. So, bro, if you want to start winning, like, you're never going to keep any of the other promises if you start your day by breaking promises. So either set your alarm for 630 or set your alarm for 530, but don't hit snooze anymore, right? Are you at a place where you ready to make a commitment like that?

Yeah, 100%. 100%. Okay. So what is the commitment? The commitment is to get up at 5.30. Don't hit snooze. Get my butt up. Okay.

Start my day off with a win. Cool. And what are you going to say to yourself when you don't feel like getting up? Because you got to have something you say to that you've got two sides. You got your side that sucks. Just like, no, I'm going to be soft and I'm going to suck at life. And I'm never going to win. And you got the side that's the lying, right?

And whichever one you feed is going to be the one there. So what are you going to say to that side that sucks when five very rolls around tomorrow and you're like, then I want to get up. I'm tired. My eyes hurt. What are you going to say? Absolutely. Yeah.

I'm going to have to tell myself it's personally my fault that I didn't go to bed earlier if I'm not tired. And I did it to myself so I could just sleep better the next night. Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you, you got to have a mantra that you say to yourself as well. Like you got to say, you got to have something like, this is what winners do or all I do is when. Pick something in your mind that you say that motivates you because legit, if you don't cheer for yourself, who is? If you are not motivating you, who is? We don't have, we don't have

our mom like as our big cheerleader anymore, like on the sidelines like a six-year-old soccer player anymore. Like, we've got to be the cheerleader. And if you can't find that internal motivation, you've got to figure it out because that's the only way to make that happen. So we got to start a day with the win. Boom. All right. So we're there. Then next, you get up and from here on now, let's just say, let's say it's, we'll just call it 630 because that's when you get out of bed.

What is the first thing you do at 630? First thing I have to do is either lift in the morning or I don't lift at all and I need the list just because it clears the line and it's healthy for you. So I love to lift. So how often are you lifting right now? Every day. So you are. It sounded like there's like days that you're missing. So are you hitting every single day? Yeah, every day. Okay. And do you have a gym membership? Do you have a gym in your basement or garage? Oh yeah, you're Texas. You guys don't have basements, right? No, no. We, so I live in a little guest house. So I'm not paying any rent, which is awesome for me. and we have a shop and we have our own little gym in there.

So I just get up and every day hit it hard in the gym. Okay. And when you go to the gym, are you, are you hitting hard or are you going in? And some days you hit hard and some days it's... Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it happens to all of us. Some days are better than others. But as long as we get in there and, you know, make something happen and that's a win.

Yeah. No, no, no. Absolutely. I actually, so I joined the lifetime, which I don't know if. it's nationwide, but I know at least around here. I joined Lifetime and started doing like the alpha classes because like when I lived in our old house, like I had this small little gym in like an unfinished portion of our basement that was just, it was crappy and all my weights were crappy and everything was crappy.

But man, I could hit it like a like a monster. And then we moved into this house and I got like this sweet rack and like all this sweet gym equipment. And I just was so soft, like so soft. I was like, I got to do something different. I got to shake it up because that's not who I am. And if I start my day like this, I'm going to finish my day like this. And so that's why I just joined Lifetime because I'm like,

I can't look over and see like a 90-pound girl putting up more weight than me and feel okay. Oh, yeah. Sorry for all you PC people out there, but that's just how I feel, right? So, so, so yeah, that was that was video. So good, good, good. So you hit the gym and then what's next? after I hit the gym I will

typically what I do the night before is write down the list so what I need to do in the morning to knock out before I start my day and so I'll look over I have I keep notes of all my KPIs in a Google sheet for all the list that I call so

for those that may be newer to the business world KPI are key performance indicators the things that you're focused on so Jack go ahead exactly exactly just make sure that I'm hitting my numbers and looking at my connection rate, my abandoned rate, just whatever list that I targeted

and deciding dictating how my future day is going to be and whatever else I have on my notes to do to knock out in the morning. Can you read to me what your KPI was from this morning? Yeah. So my KPI's were between, so I typically call, this is between me and my virtual assistant. I have a virtual assistant as well. What you pay your virtual assistant? $4 an hour. Sweet. Yep.

And so yesterday we combined for 1,972 total dials. And virtual assistant calls? She calls. She works eight hours a day. Cool. Okay. Go ahead. And this is only me calling for an hour yesterday because yesterday was pretty

busy. So my dials are 1,972. There was 1,06 no answers, six hang up, one lead, 19 non-interested. We got five wrong numbers. Our abandon rate was 5% connection 3.45. And that was for a tax delinquent list here in the DFW area. Okay. So you called, all right, so real quick, how many people did you call you,

or how many dials were made yesterday between you and the VFW? VA? 1,972. And how many conversations? We had, so our conversations, our connection rate was 3.45, so I don't have conversations in here. I need to add our conversation, our connect rate, but we had around 70 conversations. Okay, 70 conversations. How many people were interested in something?

thing. Let's just say in sell them. One, just one was interested. Okay. Still, one a day. What's your average sales price where you are? These are distress properties for this distress properties. It's anywhere from 150 to 250. Okay. But still, so let's just call it 200. So in the best case scenario, you're going to flip a wholesale innovation, like a spread deal and you're going to make some money there. Worst case scenario, as far as profitability-wise, you'll list the property. And, you know, typically what you'll see is three and a half percent on the list side and then whatever you pay a buyer's agent in this new world, right? So, so you're looking at what, seven grand right there. So do you know how many people you have to go meet with that are interested, how many

appointments you have to take to get a deal? I have, so I have two listing appointments this weekend. I have not yet converted on these distrust properties. I am, however, closing actually five days from now on a friend of mine in my sphere of influence. So that'll be a big win. So I do not have that number that you're asking for appointments to deals. Okay. Got it. How long have you been making calls? I have been making calls since I joined EXP in April. Okay. Got it. And has it been this many calls every day? No, it's been consistent like this for about a month and a half to two months around. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you're getting, so let's just say a month and a half to two months. So that takes 90 days for something to work. How many appointments have you had?

So I've had three appointments. Three appointments. Okay. Is this one, the guy that was interested? or the girl that was interested yesterday? Are they interested in an appointment? Like what is like how interested are they? It'll be a listing. They're out of Dallas and they, I'm going to have to call them back to to seal the deal on an appointment times.

Okay. Got it. Got it. So you can call them back, sealed the deal on the appointment. Totally good. And then, well, why didn't you set the appointment where you're on the phone with them? because they were in a rush and I was just trying to gather more information about their needs and kind of what was going on with everything.

All right. So here's one of the pushback moments. You ever talk to anybody that's not in a rush? Very, very few people are not in a rush on the phone. Right. Do you know how hard it's going to be to get these people back on the phone with you? Yeah, I do. Typically, I have to call them at least twice.

a day and get a text and leave a voicemail if they don't. Do you know how many hours not setting the appointment while you're on the phone with them has cost you? I do not. It's probably going to be somewhere between 45 minutes and three hours. When you think about calling, when you think about the head space you have to get in, when you think about looking at the CRM, all of the different pieces, like it is, it just takes so much like headspace. So let's roll play it. We've had the conversation you want to sell and

you're trying to get off the phone. Go ahead. So Colby, yeah. I know you got I got it. I know you got to run and just just real quick. So just so that I can get an understanding of what you're looking, looking to do and looking what to sell for. I'm curious. I can swing by. I'm going to be over in your neighborhood tomorrow or early next week, Monday evening. What would work better for you tomorrow or Monday evening? So tomorrow I'm going to be pretty tight up with work. Monday evening, I'm not sure. I might be able to fit it in, but I want to have dinner with my family.

Okay. Well, why don't we just put it on the calendar for, let's say, 515, and we can just be in and out in about, you know, 20, 30 minutes. And then we'll be done in time for you have dinner. Does that work? Yeah, that should be fun. Boom. Done.

Okay. Now push back a little bit harder and be like, I don't have my calendar in front of me. I'm really in a rush. You know, give me that piece. Absolutely. Like sometimes it's going to be like that where it's like a little bit of pushback and you've got to lean through it. But I'll tell you, with any objection, if you don't answer it at least three times until they're about to like literally hang up on you, then you are literally setting yourself up for, I mean, I don't know. If you like that kind of pain, just punch yourself and then chip in the throat and you'll be okay with it.

Because you're setting yourself up for pain when you don't set the appointment and then have to chase people down. And I'll tell you, I am that person. Like I needed to get a generator. When we moved into a format, power goes out here a little bit more often. So we needed a generator. So I signed up for all these generator type installers. And all these people were calling me. And I'm like, I just don't want to deal with it right now.

I don't want to deal with it right now. And I just kept pushing it off, pushing it off. And the reality is if somebody, When I got it done, somebody got me on the phone, nailed me down on the time, and then got out here and they got my business because I didn't want to go through a bunch of different people because I was busy. So that was the whole thing is you got to get somebody to like nailed down. So, all right, give me a little bit of a little bit more pushback on that. Okay. So yeah, just tomorrow or Monday evening work for you better?

No, neither of those times work for me. Okay, cool, cool. you know this weekend i got some flexibility when do you typically when do you are you typically free on a weekend on a weekend man it all depends because my my kids are playing sports it all depends on their tournament probably probably not available in the weekend okay you want to just put why don't we just put like tuesday evening around five down and then if if you need to change it we can we can absolutely change it but like why don't we just put that down as a placeholder for now and then next week on Monday, I'll reach out to you and just double check that that works.

And if it works, cool. And if we need to bump it, then we'll just bump it, you know, to a time that works. Does that work for you? Because I know you're, I know you're a little bit busy and I'm really trying to get stuff done. So is that, is that cool? I'm not sure if it'll work. I may or may not answer the phone, but you could give it a try. Okay. Cool. Well, sounds good. Well, why don't, like, I get that. And so, yeah, I don't, I don't know that we need to talk on the phone as much. I mean, obviously, you want to get your house sold and I want to either get you a cash offer. I think, you know, we may have a buyer for your house. So I just need to, I'll all just come through, take some notes

and, you know, just I can hop in, hop out, you know, 15 minutes and we'll be good to go. So yeah, why don't we just schedule for Tuesday? And if you need to reschedule, we'll reschedule. I'll text you Monday to make sure we're good to go. Okay. That's fine. As long as it don't take too long. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If it's any more than 15 minutes, we'll, We'll rock and roll. We'll get out. Boom.

All right. Cool. Yeah. So what did I do there? You handled the objection and you kept on trying to find a solution for a better date that worked better with him. And you didn't take the no for an answer. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. Everybody's going to give you a no. And I tell the story all the time. I went to a wedding. Right. And, you know, I like to, I need to get slightly custom stuff just because, you know, just my build, you know, off the rack doesn't work for me very well. And I went to a wedding and sure enough, I tore a big old, the seam in my butt, right? Just, just tore it.

And we were heading to the reception. And so I, you know, there was a mall literally right across from the reception center. And I'm like, dude, I'm just going to go in. I saw a big J.C. Penny sign. So I just ran into J.C. Penny. I'm like, what can I get that will fit and match my suit? I walk in and a salesperson walks up and he's like, hey, can you help me? And you know what I said to him?

I said, I mean, just guess. What do you think I said, you know? I have no idea. Dude, I just said, I'm just looking. I wasn't just looking. I had a freaking tear in my suit button, you know? Like I was the epitome. I'm not just looking.

I was a buyer. But that was just naturally what came out of my mouth on that. And then I start looking around and I'm like, oh, crap. And I knew I didn't have much time. And I'm like, dude, I need to find it. So then I went back and found him. I was like, hey, can you show me? Where's the men's section?

I need like a soup hand. And then they brought me in and showed me all the different options and I found something that fit. And I told them what happened and I found something that fit. But literally, I thought about that. And I'm like, why did I say I was just looking just naturally? Like that just came out of my mouth because I just didn't want to deal with the hassle, right? And that's where people are. And even though they need your help, they're going to say

the equivalent of, I'm just looking, or not now, not now, not now. And that's where the winners are able to figure out just like the generator people, they nailed me down on a time. Like when you can nail people down in a time, it's going to save you. Imagine that times the next 25 conversations. How many hours of follow-up you're going to have to do versus just get something nailed down. And even if they cancel on you later, like, that's the whole thing. And let me, I'll say one last thing. And then maybe we'll do a part two of this because we didn't really even get far into the day. But here's the other thing.

Never call and just confirm an appointment. If you ever confirm an appointment, you're asking to get canceled on. So my dentist, you know, I remember sitting with him. He's a business guy. And I remember sitting with him. I was sitting in the chair. And we were just talking with each other. And I was like, hey, I get.

the automated voicemails from you or the text from you that have no reply all the time. I was like, I'm just curious why you send those like that? And he was like, oh, because we found that whenever we called to confirm, people would just cancel on us all the time. So we send the message where people can't reply so they can't cancel, but they're also reminded that it's there. And he said, our cancellation rate went down by more than 50% when we stopped giving people the opportunity to cancel. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Last thing I'll throw out there,

we partnered with a company called Express Homebuyers where they would send their listing appointments to us. And all of a sudden, we went from closing, like a set to met rate of over 80% to a set to mat rate of less than 20. And we had no idea why. Then we found out that on that they updated the calendar and on it, it put a reschedule or a cancel appointment button. and literally as soon as that button appeared, people rescheduled or canceled nonstop. Like literally we had over 60% of the people that normally we met with when it was just a button to click, they just rescheduled because everybody's busy. So just know everybody's busy.

Keep the appointment, move forward, and your productivity is going to go through the route. All right. We're at the turn of the hour or so. Colby, give me three things that you're thinking about. And one thing you're going to implement from this session. Yeah, so three things I'm thinking about. First of all, I can't lie to myself and hit snooze. That's first and foremost.

How we start the day is how we set the tone for the day. So we need to start off with a win. I'm going to set the appointment. If there's any pushback, that's fine. That's normal. Get a time, you know, get a time and continue to be consistently. calling and marketing to get deals. That's awesome.

That's awesome. I know that as you keep doing this, you're about a month in. So you got two more months before you start really reaping the benefits of all the work you're doing. So just stay consistent. You got 60 more days of consistency,

of planting where you don't necessarily see the fruit all coming up. And this is where I'm just going to use, you know, harsher language. This is where losers quit. winners keep going. And so, you know, keep running, brother, keep running, keep doing the right thing. And it will come. You know, you will have the harvest coming up in the next 60 days from today. All right, man, this was great. This was awesome. I hope it was helpful for you. And if you're listening in on

this and this was helpful, please just post that in the, in the review section. The more reviews we get, the more, you know, anywhere you listen, whether it's iTunes or wherever it rewards that. So we really mean a lot to me if you would give us an honest review. And if I can do anything to serve you, hit me up on Instagram at C-D-R-R-R-O-C-K. Happy to help and serve you all. Until next time, Colby Crush it. And everybody, go out there. Be a person at your word. What you say you're going to do, go make it happen. Kick butt. See you guys. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Uncommon Real Estate. Subscribe to the podcast to stay up to day with the latest mastermind conversations from Chris, Jeff, and other uncommon

real estate industry leaders. If you love this podcast, please write us a review. And to fast track your real estate career, go to chriscratic.com.