Over the past year I went through more than 270 open homes myself — three failed offers before I finally sold my place and bought the next one.
As someone who coaches agents for a living, being on the other side of the transaction for once was eye-opening. It gave me a clear, first-hand read on exactly what makes an agent memorable enough to get the call for a listing presentation — and what makes them the trusted advisor a buyer comes back to for good.
Every buyer eventually becomes a seller, so how you show up during the buying experience matters just as much as how you show up during a sale.
As motivational speaker Eric Thomas said, “Be phenomenal or be forgotten”.
Be engaging
People don’t remember what you told them. They remember how you made them feel — and that’s the single most memorable thing an agent can get right.
Over that year I met or saw more than 60 agents. I can genuinely remember fewer than one in a hundred of them. The handful I do remember stood out because they were warm — welcoming, smiling, funny, with zero pretence or ego.
They understood that today’s buyer is tomorrow’s seller, and treated everyone with the same level of respect regardless of which side of the deal they were on. The agents who stood out weren’t chasing a transaction — they were building a relationship built to last.
Ask yourself honestly: is that how buyers would describe you?
Feeling this one? You don’t have to figure it out alone — book a free High Performance Call and let’s talk through where you’re at.
Be inquiring
Strong relationships start with genuine curiosity about the other person. Lean in. Ask questions.
Almost none of the agents I encountered asked me anything at an open home, let alone followed up afterwards. A small handful stayed in touch beyond the standard automated listing emails.
Genuine inquiry is how trust gets built — and trust is the real currency behind a sustainable real estate career. If someone trusts you, they’ll actually listen to what you tell them.
How curious are you, really, about the people walking through your opens?
Be entwined
To entwine means to weave together — and almost none of the agents I met did that. Beyond the obligatory email blast, there was no real effort to stay connected, so they were forgotten just as quickly as they’d appeared.
The agents who stayed woven into my life through consistent, genuine touchpoints would have stayed top of mind. Instead, when it came time to sell, I ended up choosing an agent off review ratings rather than anyone I’d actually met.
Staying in touch isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the mechanism that keeps you top of mind when the moment finally arrives.
The upside in all of this: the bar most agents are clearing is low. Stand out even a little and you’ll get noticed. Stand out a lot, and you’ll dominate your market.
At the end of the day, people buy people — that’s the whole game. An agent with modest experience can still win the listing if the buyer trusts them and believes in doing business with them.
So ask yourself: how engaging, how inquiring, and how entwined are you actually being in your market?
If you want to build the kind of presence that turns buyers into lifelong clients, book a free High Performance Call and let’s work on it.
About Jet Xavier
Jet Xavier is a High Performance mindset and accountability coach who works with real estate agents, principals and team leaders to build sustainable, high-performing careers. Learn more about Jet.
This piece began as a column for Elite Agent — you can read the original here.
