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Summary Every listing you take costs you at least 50 hours. Most take 100 to 150. If your seller process lives between your ears, something is going to fall through the cracks. Last week we called checklists what they really are. They are promises you make to your clients, and proof that you kept them. This week we take that to the listing side. We walk the full seller journey, from the first conversation to the follow-up after closing, and we build it into Pillar 4 of Take Flight, Standard Operating Procedures. What you will take away: The four stages of every listing: lead acquisition to signed agreement, listing launch to contract, contract to close, and post-closingWhy your SOPs belong in your listing presentation, and how sellers who run their own businesses respond to a defined processThe three Ps that have to go right: property, people, and priceOne clause to write into the listing agreement before a seller insists on starting highWhy it is a listening presentation, not a listing presentationHow to tell a true seller from an owner, using an honest conversation about opportunity costThe AI prompt that builds about 80% of your listing side SOP in one sittingOverpriced listings cost you more than time. They cost you your reputation. Get the prompt: Visit askjimmiller.com, join Take Flight Weekly, and ask for episode 344. We will send it straight to you. Next week: the buyer side checklist. Follow along on Instagram @askjimmiller. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the listing process and its importance 03:23 Four major phases of the listing lifecycle 07:15 Building your listing SOP and operational procedures 08:44 The three Ps for successful listings: property, people, price 11:36 Setting boundaries and qualifying leads effectively 14:49 Discussing opportunity cost and seller mindset 16:21 Time investment and listing success 17:50 The impact of pricing and overpricing on reputation 18:20 From listing to contract and post-closing follow-up 19:17 Using AI to create listing SOPs and operational checklists 21:14 Practical steps for building your listing process with AI 22:22 Team roles and task ownership in listing management 23:14 Encouragement to leverage AI tools for business growth 24:13 Closing remarks and upcoming topics

Summary Every listing you take and every buyer you represent comes with promises. Most advisors keep those promises from memory. In this episode, we officially open Pillar 4 of Take Flight, Standard Operating Procedures, and I make the case for why running your transactions from memory is the most expensive habit in your business, even if you never miss a date. I share the story of a coaching client representing a seller in a summer transaction. A young family had the house under contract, the kids already picking out bedrooms before the new school year, with one contingency left to clear. A cash backup offer was waiting in the wings. The lender cleared the buyer to close, but the buyer's agent had a busy summer, forgot to send the notice, and the contingency date passed. The seller moved on to the backup offer. One forgotten email cost a family their home. Nobody is good enough to remember everything, and the advisors who manage to are paying for it at 2 a.m., running a mental checklist instead of sleeping. Here is the line I want you to hold onto: checklists are promises you made your clients in advance, and validation that those promises were kept. When every transaction runs through a system, clients start telling you how easy you made it feel. That compliment is your opening. I walk you through how to receive it and let your clients know you are open for business, and why one successful closing that turns into two referrals can triple your production. I also lay out the four stages of every buy side and list side transaction: lead acquisition to signed agreement, launch to contract, contract to close, and post-closing. Your commitment this week is simple. Make building your SOPs part of your 2027 business plan. Take one buyer or one seller all the way through, from first lead to post closing, and get every step out of your head as you go. Then build in a 15-to-30-minute review after every closing so the system keeps getting better. Over the next few weeks, we go deep on the buy side and the list side. Grab your coffee, leash up the dogs, and let's build a business that runs on standards instead of memory. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to SOPs and Checklists in Real Estate 00:29 The Four Pillars of Business Success 00:58 Why Transaction Management Often Fails 01:29 Jim Miller's Purpose and Mission 02:25 Personalizing SOPs for Your Market 02:53 A Real Estate Transaction Case Study 04:48 The Consequences of Forgetting Critical Steps 06:28 The Value of SOPs for Growing Teams 07:52 Checklists as Promises and Validation 09:28 Using Technology to Track Transactions 12:40 The Power of Systematic Processes for Business Growth 14:09 Stages of a Real Estate Transaction 15:07 Starting Your SOPs and Checklists Today 17:13 Post-Transaction Review and Continuous Improvement 18:11 Building a Post-Closing Client Experience 19:10 Resources and Support for Real Estate Professionals

Summary: The transaction does not end at the closing table. It ends when the boxes are put away. This week we move into the 5th part of the client life cycle: post-closing. If you have not heard Episode 341, start there. It is the foundational episode that breaks the business down into seven core areas and today goes deep on one of them. Most advisors hand over a bottle of champagne and move on to the next deal in the pipeline. The ELP does something different. She tucks her client into the new home the same way you would tuck a child into bed, with care and without rushing. That is the difference between service and hospitality, and it is what turns a closed transaction into a lifetime relationship and a steady stream of referrals. I walk through the full 30-to-45-day post-closing window step by step, then show how this process becomes the handoff from Pillar 4 (SOPs) into Pillar 3 (CRM and Relationship Management), where the lifetime of follow-up begins. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the importance of post-closing in real estate 01:56 The relationship cycle and the role of post-closing 04:06 Mindset: Closing is the start, not the end 06:08 Tucking clients into their new home like putting kids to bed 09:01 Thoughtful gestures: gifts, vendor handoffs, and personalized touches 11:56 The power of a handwritten note and small acts of hospitality 15:03 Follow-up timing: 2-3 weeks and 45 days post-closing 18:11 Using CRM for ongoing relationship management and process improvement 20:06 The importance of a comprehensive post-closing SOP and continuous refinement Connect with Jim: Follow on Instagram @askjimmiller and grab the 2027 Business Planning Guide from the link in the profileVisit the new website at askjimmiller.comLeave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I read every one.

Summary This is a foundational episode, one to come back to again and again. Jim takes 28 years of building a real estate business and puts it into one cycle: from the moment a new client enters your world, through the closing, into your CRM, and back around as the referrals and introductions that keep your business growing for years. As we move into business planning season for 2027, these are the 7 plays that run the cycle: Know your three rocks of marketing. Track every deal, find the three sources that bring you new business, and focus there.Hold your boundaries and standards. Qualify every lead on price point, geography, and fit. Be a buyer, not a seller.Keep your pipeline at 150 to 200 percent of your goal. Track it on a 12-month rolling basis so you never start over on January 1.Make one transaction equal three. Every successful closing should add two new opportunities to your pipeline.Tuck them in. The transaction is not over at the closing table. It is over when your client is settled in their new home.Build CRM excellence. Give your top 50 to 75 people a lifetime of follow-up, supported by 10 intentional connections a week.Anchor it all with your weekly planning session. Think like a chief executive officer, not a chief everything officer.Run 50 to 75 (no more than 100) people through this cycle with consistent execution, and your marketing becomes a nurturing campaign for the clients who already trust you. Get the 2027 Business Planning Guide, including the life cycle graphic, through the link in Jim's Instagram profile at @askjimmiller. Visit the new website at askjimmiller.com. Next week: a full episode on the post-closing process and the tuck-in. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Client Lifecycle 04:39 Marketing and the Top of the Cycle 06:04 Identifying Key Sources of New Business 07:03 Qualifying Leads with Boundaries and Standards 08:59 Building a Robust Pipeline 13:00 From Transaction to Relationship Building 15:53 Post-Closing Follow-Up and Tucking In 16:48 CRM Excellence and Lifetime Follow-Up 19:23 Weekly Planning and Business Growth 21:12 Defining What Winning Looks Like 22:29 Wrapping Up and Next Steps Follow me on @askjimmiller on Instagram and visit my new website at Ask Jim Miller | Luxury Real Estate Coaching

Summary My wife and I have been eating at the same three or four Chicago restaurants for 25 years. The interiors have not changed. The menu has not changed. Our server knows what she drinks, and it is on the table before she walks in. None of that costs the restaurant a dime, and it is the reason we keep going back. A restaurant that has to find new customers every night does not last. Neither does a real estate business. That is the whole episode, and I call it the lowest common denominator business strategy. This one is for the advisor who does her best work on a yellow pad. The one who has tried the digital systems, the AI driven planners, the cloud based CRM and keeps coming back to paper because that is how her brain works. I want to give you permission. Analog is not a limitation. I have watched people two and three X their business on nothing more than a planner, a weekly planning session, and a short list of people who need to hear from them this week. Consistency is the system. When you see consistency, look for a habit, a routine, a process behind it. I walk through what Megan and John, my two avatar clients, do that most people skip. They know what winning looks like for them and they have given up comparison. They underwrite every client against their standards and boundaries. They plan the week, then sweep it forward every morning. They work the Power of the Next 10 and they know that 85 to 90 percent of their business comes from their network. They add support around 17 to 20 transactions a year. And they treat the closing table as the starting line, not the finish. How much of your money did I just spend on that strategy? Almost none. That is the point. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Lowest Common Denominator Business Strategy 02:31 Jim's Purpose and the Power of Simplicity 03:27 Restaurant Analogy for Business Simplicity 06:48 Consistency in Business and Client Relationships 08:14 Identifying Your Personal Success Metrics 11:19 The Power of Weekly Planning and Daily Routines 13:14 Focusing on the Power of the Next 10 Contacts 16:22 Building a Predictable and Repeatable Business Model 19:07 Client Relationship Management Post-Transaction 21:34 Long-Term Relationship Building and Network Focus 23:36 The Cost-Effectiveness of Basic Strategies 24:21 The Importance of Consistent Client Experience Make sure to follow me on Instagram at @askjimmiller and if you want more content visit AskJimMiller.com.

Summary Jim Miller shares a comprehensive guide on building an effective CRM contact structure for real estate professionals, emphasizing relationship management and operational excellence.  This episode is for the advisor who has already done the earlier work. You built the list. You have your top 100 in place. You graduated from the spreadsheet and moved everything into a CRM. Now comes the part almost everyone skips, which is deciding what a single contact should actually look like before you build a thousand of them. We are teaching Take Flight all the way through 2026, and this is Pillar 3, CRM and Relationship Management. I built this as a teaching session you can come back to in a year and still use, because the architecture of a good contact does not change much. I walk through five layers of a CRM contact. The first is contact information, and it is more specific than most people treat it. Full name plus whatever they actually go by. Personal mobile, not the office line. Personal email, not the work address, because the work address dies the day they change jobs. The mailing address, which is the field almost everybody leaves empty and the one that makes handwritten notes and gifting possible. Be careful with PO boxes, since you can mail to them but you cannot ship to them. Then the preferred contact method and live with what they tell you. The second layer is classification. Platinum, gold, silver, or fringe. Pipeline status, whether they are warm, hot, active, pending, or closed. Gifting status and the date of the last gift. And the source of the relationship, traced all the way back to the point of origination, because that is your marketing data telling you where your business actually comes from. The third layer is the relationship itself. Birthday, home purchase anniversary, spouse or life partner, children, pets, schools, where they went to college, what they care about. A top 100 counts households, so combine the household into one contact. The fourth layer is property. Current address, purchase date, purchase price, second homes, rentals, land, where they vacation, and what they have told you about the next move. The fifth layer is activity. Last reach out, what was discussed, and the next touch scheduled in advance, so the CRM tells you who to call instead of you trying to remember. Then come the tags. Keep them lowercase and keep the working list between 15 and 25. Tag interests, life stage, property type, work type, and how they like to be reached. The list of names is the only thing in your business that carries value other than you, and it stays fresh only if you prune it weekly during your planning session. The system holds the information so you can be present for the person, because you cannot automate thoughtfulness. Start with 25 names. Build one contact out completely, exactly the way you want every contact to look, and use it as the reference for every name after it. Chapter five of The Go-Giver says it plainly. Your compensation is tied to how many people you serve and how well you serve them. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to CRM and Relationship Management 01:57 Why a CRM is Essential for Real Estate Success 03:51 Building the Architecture of a Client Contact 06:13 Key Information to Collect for Each Contact 08:11 Classifying and Tagging Your Contacts 10:02 Tracking Engagement and Follow-Ups 12:01 Using Tags for Marketing and Personalization 14:00 Maintaining and Updating Your CRM 15:59 The Power of Consistency and Regular Pruning 17:55 Building Business Through Relationship Excellence 19:54 Final Tips and Resources for CRM Success Follow me on Instagram at @askjimmiller or receive my weekly email by requesting it at [email protected]

Summary Jim Miller shares practical strategies for managing client relationships through effective CRM practices, focusing on top-tier clients and maintaining consistent communication to foster trust and referrals.  This episode came straight out of your questions. Who are my Platinum clients? I have too many people on my lists, so where do I start? I do not have a hundred people, so does this even apply to me? How often should I be reaching out, and at what point am I annoying them? I have been getting these same questions for years, so I took this episode to answer them one at a time. It also picks up right where last week left off, with the client care fund, where you set aside 10% of the commissions that come from your network and hold that money as an investment back into those relationships instead of letting it disappear into an operations account. Platinum is the top 20% of your top 100. These are the people who do business with you regularly. Developers, investors, connectors, the ones who saw your value immediately and say your name when you are not in the room. The standard is roughly ten touches a year, four to five of them phone calls if you are not seeing that person in person, and you cannot go more than 90 days without reaching out. Gold is the next 30% down. They love you and they refer to you, sometimes without ever having transacted with you. Same 90 day cadence, same anchored dates, the spend is just a little different. Two dates anchor the entire year. The birthday and the home purchase anniversary. My biggest return on investment when I was selling was my birthday card program, and the people highest up the food chain are the ones getting the least attention on that day. The home anniversary is your natural window for the annual property review. Silver is the bottom 50%, good relationships with low engagement, worth an occasional touch and your marketing but never at the expense of platinum and gold. Fringe lives on your email and your social media. Platinum and Gold are also on your holiday list, and the ideal drop is the Monday or Tuesday right after Thanksgiving, which means that project starts in September, not in November. Then you hold it with a system. One person I work with runs the whole thing on a printed spreadsheet. Name, category, quarterly columns, birthday, home anniversary, notes, last contact date. Their director of operations prints it every quarter and they mark it off by hand. Their production has doubled and is on its way to tripling. Your clients do not care what CRM you use. They care that you remember them. If a hundred names feels like too much, start with 25, run them the right way, then add five at a time. And when you make the call, understand what the call is. You are not selling and you are not pursuing. You are asking how they are doing as a person. That is the whole job, and it is almost not fair how well it works. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and episode overview 00:29 Jim's purpose and approach to teaching 01:27 Client fund and relationship investment 02:23 Managing different client types and communication 05:21 Defining platinum clients and their importance 07:11 Frequency of contact with top clients 08:39 Recognizing clients on special days 10:37 Home anniversary and annual reviews 13:29 Gold clients and their management 14:29 Silver clients and low-engagement strategies 16:24 Holiday gifting and client appreciation 17:52 Focusing on top clients and managing overwhelm 20:14 Cadence and management systems 22:09 Simplifying processes for consistency 23:06 Relationship building over selling 24:09 Final thoughts and call to action Visit my Instagram profile at @askjimmiller and request my weekly newsletter by emailing me at [email protected]

Summary This week I did something I have not done on this show before. I brought real research with me. I have been archiving my own thinking and my own data for eight or nine months now, building what people call a second brain, and this is the first time I merged that archive with outside data and pulled it up to the microphone. The subject is client gifting and entertainment. The real question underneath it is whether you have a strategy for it at all. Most advisors do not. They have a habit, a holiday, and a credit card. I went back to 2013, my last official year selling. By then I had doubled my business four times in five years and finished around thirty-seven million in volume with an average sale price north of a million. The number that actually built that year was not the volume. It was sixty-eight. Sixty-eight people sat in my platinum and gold, and from 2013 forward I made a deliberate decision to put more effort into fewer people. When I totaled what I deployed across that whole network, my top 100, my referral partners, my warm and hot lists, and my collaborative brokers, the number came out just over fifty-one thousand dollars. Roughly seven hundred and fifty dollars a relationship. Then I ran that number as an investment instead of an expense, which is the whole point of the episode. I walk through what a warm, top-of-mind network returns on that kind of deployment, and I hold it up against what the same money does sitting in a broad index fund over the same stretch of years. I also answer the question every advisor asks the second they hear the number, which is how you possibly fund fifty-one thousand dollars of client care. That answer is new. I have been working on it for about a month and this is the first time I have said it out loud. When a broker in another market refers your business, you pay a fee, you are thrilled to pay it, and it never touches your account. When somebody in your own top 100 refers your business, there is no fee at all. So pay yourself on it. Ten percent off the top, into a separate account, before it ever hits operations and before it ever hits personal. I want to be clear that I am not a financial advisor, and this is not investment advice. What I am giving you is my own data, my own experience, and the mindset shift I want you to make before next Sunday. Money spent on the people who already trust you is not a line item to defend at the end of the year. It is the investment that produces the business. Next week I take the other half of this and show you how to deploy it, which is where the strategy actually lives. It takes time and it takes effort, because you cannot automate thoughtfulness. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the concept of client gifting as an investment 01:57 Jim's background and the importance of relationship management 03:56 Analyzing business data and the value of a network 05:50 Funding client care through referral-based investment 07:55 The math behind ROI on relationship investments 09:49 The power of trust and influence in client relationships 12:11 Separating investment funds from operational expenses 14:02 Long-term benefits of strategic gifting and relationship building 15:02 Practical strategies for deploying relationship investments 15:59 Encouragement to view client spending as a long-term investment Follow me at @AskJimMiller on Instagram

Summary Not every touch carries the same weight. A text and a lunch both get filed under staying in touch in most advisors’ heads, and they are not the same thing. Not to the client, and not to the business. This one lays the ways you communicate out as a ladder, ten rungs, and makes the case that the art is not picking the most convenient rung. It is picking the right one for the person in front of you. This continues the 2026 teaching series inside Pillar 3, CRM and Relationship Management, and it is the practical half of the work. The database tells you who. The ladder tells you how. It starts with an email from someone in the ecosystem, and the question is a fair one. He built his top 100 and came up light. Five names, maybe ten, maybe thirty-five that felt real. That is normal and it is not a problem. A healthy Top 100 runs roughly 20 percent platinum, 30 percent gold, and 50 percent silver, meaning prospects and the people who have not fully gelled with you yet. Most advisors who have been at this a while land between 35 and 75 and build toward 100 from there. I had 11 in 2009. His second question was whether ten reach outs a week would burn through the list too fast. It will not, because the next 10 was never only the top 100. Prospects, referral partners, vendors, transaction partners, and the rest of your sphere all live in that rotation. The ladder itself runs from most human to most automated. Rung one is the one on one in person meeting. Two ears, one mouth, and no business talk unless they bring it up. Rung two is a phone call. Five minutes, no agenda, they simply crossed your mind. Rung three is FaceTime or Zoom, which costs you a scheduling step. Rung four is the handwritten note, and it lands the way it does because almost nobody receives more than a couple in a year. One shows up on a counter and stays there. Rungs five and six are the video note and the voice note. Rung seven is the text, which we all use constantly and which is exactly why it is not special. Rung eight is an email you actually wrote yourself. One human, one recipient, one reason. Rung nine is a segmented and tagged newsletter. Rung ten is the broadcast. Direct mail, the mass email, the social post to everybody. The middle rungs move around depending on the person, and social media DMs sit right in that range. Here is the line to carry into your week. You cannot automate thoughtfulness. A newsletter is not a touch. A social post is not a touch. Neither one counts toward your next 10, no matter how good it looked going out the door. The work is to know how each person wants to hear from you, note it in the CRM so you stop guessing, and then get on the rung that matches. Your Platinum's should see your face in person once or twice a year. Everything else follows from that. Listen for more.  This is your coaching session. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the hierarchy of communication 01:58 Building your top 100 client list 05:49 The communication ladder explained 07:43 First rung: In-person one-on-one meetings 08:43 Second rung: Phone calls and personal check-ins 09:42 Using FaceTime, Zoom, and scheduled meetings 10:40 The power of handwritten notes and video messages 12:06 Text messages, voice notes, and social media interactions 14:02 Email, newsletters, and segmented communication 15:57 Broadcasting via direct mail, email, and social media 17:50 The art of personalized communication and CRM notes 19:48 Summary: Matching communication methods to individuals Follow me at @askjimmiller on Instagram

Summary There are two types of real estate advisors and entrepreneurs. One of them builds a network on purpose. The other waits for the phone to ring. Episode 335 puts those two side by side and makes the case that the distance between them has almost nothing to do with talent, market, or timing. It comes down to intention. This episode continues the 2026 teaching series inside Pillar 3, CRM and Relationship Management, and it goes underneath the technology to the thing the technology is supposed to serve. The tool is not the point. Cloud-based system, spreadsheet, index cards on a desk. Your clients do not care which one you use. They care whether you follow up, and whether the follow up feels authentic to them. The parable in this episode is a map. There is a map of North America on the wall of Jim’s office, and it has been there for ten years covered in pins. Blue where there is a relationship he trusts. Light blue where a relationship still needed to be built. There are not many light blue pins left, because filling that map became a deliberate practice rather than a hope. The same practice shows up in how he walks into a large industry event. Research the room in advance. Identify seven to ten people who operate the way you operate and who serve markets that feed yours. Reach out before you arrive. Set the coffee. Follow up after. Walking out of a room of three thousand people with ten names you will actually nurture beats walking out with a stack of handouts and nobody to call. Then the math. Roughly 85 to 90 percent of an elite advisor’s business comes from the network. Attraction marketing is real, it matters, and plenty of people do very well with it, but on average it accounts for 10 to 15 percent. Effort should follow those numbers, and for most of the industry it does not. The episode also makes a harder point about ownership. When you eventually step back, the only thing in your business that still holds value is the network of names and people who trust you. Everything else is activity. This is also where the referral bench earns its keep. The plumber who takes your call, the contractor who moves your client to the front of the line, the vendor who owes you thirty introductions and is glad to return one. Robert Cialdini named that dynamic decades ago in Influence. You open a door, they open a door, and the client is the one who wins. Two books anchor the episode. Influence by Robert Cialdini, and Rich Relationships by Selena Soo, where the research puts one true connector who believes in you on par with a thousand to ten thousand social followers. Sit with that before you post again. The close is the question worth carrying into the week. Am I networking, or am I observing? A network does not get built in a year. It gets built across a career, and the only day to start is the one you are in. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Networking vs Observing 00:29 The importance of active networking 00:59 Networking as an active, intentional process 01:27 Content layers in the Take Flight ecosystem 02:24 Purpose of relationship management 02:54 Building operational excellence in business 03:23 Technology vs relationship-based client follow-up 04:20 Passive observers vs active networkers 05:21 Long-term value of your network 06:17 Networking at industry events 08:19 Building a strategic referral network 11:51 The influence of relationships and the book Influence 15:10 Rich Relationships book and connection rings 17:36 The law of compensation and network value 18:36 Summary and key takeaways on networking 19:01 Call to action: Be intentional in networking 20:00 Closing remarks and next steps resources "Influence" by Robert Cialdini  "Rich Relationships" by Selena Soo   Jim Miller on Instagram:  @askjimmiller

Summary Most advisors treat social media as a broadcast channel, and that is exactly why it is not working for them. In this episode Jim reframes Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn as one enormous cocktail party. Your Top 100 is in that room. Your referral partners are in that room. Your competition is in that room, shaking hands and remembering names. If you have decided the room is too loud, too vain, or too far outside your comfort, you have not opted out of the comparison. You have only opted out of the relationships. This is Pillar 3 work, CRM and relationship Management, with a thread of Pillar 5  - Marketing, Lead Generation and Personal Branding, running through it, and it starts with a decision about which kind of person you are going to be when you walk in. There are two kinds of people at that party. The first walks in and says look at me. Look at my listing, look at my numbers, look at my video. They post and they leave. The second walks in and asks how they can be useful. Jim gives the practical build for becoming the second kind on Instagram. Use the favorites and close friends settings so your top 100 has its own feed instead of the algorithm's. Comment on five posts a day and five stories a day, with twenty or thirty seconds of real thought behind each one, because a comment on a story puts you in the direct messages where an actual conversation can start. Facebook gets the same treatment with a different tool. Friends lists, built from the desktop, let you sort three or four thousand connections into the groups that matter and read only those. LinkedIn earns fifteen or twenty minutes a week if your clients work in industries that live there. Google Alerts do the quiet work in the background, telling you when a client is promoted, honored, or written about. All four of these do the same job. They convert scrolling into intelligence, and intelligence is what lets you act before someone has to tell you anything. The heart of the episode is a story about a loss in Jim's own family and the note and book that arrived from someone in his network who simply noticed a post and did something about it. That book still sits out in the house years later. It is the cleanest illustration of the definition Jim gives here: thoughtfulness is taking the time, putting real thought into something, and then acting on it. Awareness without action is not thoughtfulness. Tools can surface the moment. They cannot supply the care. Next Sunday takes this into a live room, where the same principle has an entirely different set of do's and don'ts. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and overview of social media as a networking tool 01:58 The importance of being present at the social media 'cocktail party' 03:53 Two types of social media users: broadcasters vs. value-adders 05:51 Using Instagram for relationship intelligence and engagement 09:13 Managing your Instagram feed with favorites and close friends 12:08 Commenting on posts and stories to build relationships 14:11 Managing Facebook with friends lists for targeted feed viewing 16:02 Using LinkedIn and Google Alerts for professional networking 17:55 The power of thoughtful actions and recognizing major life events 20:03 The mindset shift: adding value vs. broadcasting 21:03 Engaging actively and responding to comments for better visibility 21:57 Final tips and next steps for social media networking Resources Instagram:  @askjimmiller Website:  askjimmiller.com

Summary Most real estate advisors were taught the wrong job. The industry says we sell homes. That framing screwed me up for years, because the product is a home but the work is people. What we actually do is put buyers with sellers and sellers with buyers, and that only happens through relationships. Episode 333 continues our Pillar 3 journey on CRM and relationship management, and this week the focus is the best call you can get in this business, the one where your ideal client finds you first. There is a term for this. Return on Network (RON). Just like a return on time or a return on investment, your network pays a dividend when you have put yourself in the right rooms and maintained the relationships you built there. For elite level producers, 85 to 90 percent of business comes from network. Once you do that math, the conclusion is not complicated. The area of your business that deserves the most intention is the one most advisors treat as an afterthought. This ties straight to the law of compensation from chapter five of The Go-Giver by Bob Berg. Your income equals the number of people you serve and the way in which you serve them. Notice what is not in that sentence. It says nothing about houses. I walk through four situations from my own network to make it real. An advisor gets a call from a parent at her school who needs a private, confidential move, and she already has the buyer, so the seller shows the home to one person and everyone wins. An advisor fields a request from another broker, works his own database, and finds a client sitting on a property who names a move-me number. A couple relocating to Chicago in 2011 call me because a past client told them I was the only option, and I close a $1.6 million sale in thirty days when I need it most. An advisor drags himself across a restaurant to greet a past client, meets two more empty-nester couples at the table, and that one walk turns into $25 million in production. None of these are lucky. Every one of them traces back to a relationship that was built and then maintained. Here is the hard part. This is not Instagrammable. It does not go viral. Nobody talks about it but it is the foundational principle of a successful brokerage business, and it is the only real equity you have. The industry keeps telling us to go find new people. In reality the new people are already connected to the clients in your top 100. The work is two to three hours a week, maintaining your network one brick at a time, and once you lay a brick in that foundation you never remove it. It does not matter whether your CRM is analog, a spreadsheet, or something sophisticated. What your top 100 cares about is that you are invested in them and that you are their person. Build the systems and the rhythms to hold those relationships, and the business gets easier, more predictable, and more enjoyable. That is the business we all want. This is your coaching session. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and overview of relationship management 00:30 The value of the network and return on relationships 01:28 The professional purpose: helping you win in real estate 02:10 What is a broker? Beyond selling homes, creating relationships 05:02 The true role of a real estate advisor: putting people together 07:10 The law of compensation and serving more people 08:19 Examples of relationship-driven transactions 16:23 Creating momentum through relationship systems 18:18 The importance of maintaining your network 20:40 Building a foundation brick by brick 22:37 The joy of your ideal client finding you 23:11 Closing remarks and next steps Find me on Instagram at @askjimmiller and online at askjimmiller.com.

Summary In 2013, I made a decision that on paper looked like career suicide. I moved into leadership at Jameson Sotheby's and agreed to wind down my personal real estate business. My strategy was to cut my Top 150 in half, push the bottom 50% down to fringe, and go all in on the 68 people who mattered most. I was concerned my production would suffer. The opposite happened. 2014, 2015, and 2016 were some of the best brokerage years I ever had. This episode is about why, and it is the real start of Pillar 3, CRM and Relationship Management. The heart of this episode is the referral tree. Your platinum clients are the seed and the trunk. They introduce you to the person, who introduces you to the next person, who becomes three more branches. Picture ten or fifteen of those trees, nurtured over years, and you start to see why I still know I had exactly 68 clients. I know that number the way you know your own kids' birthdays, because I looked at it every single day. That daily attention is the entire reason my business doubled four times in five years. A CRM organizes the relationship. It does not make the call. You cannot automate thoughtfulness. Listen for more details. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the importance of CRM and relationship management 01:00 The value of CRM in generating millions in revenue 01:59 Categories of clients: platinum, gold, silver, fringe 02:57 Jim's personal story and business growth through CRM 03:59 The law of compensation and serving more clients 04:56 Creating a top 100 client list for business success 05:59 The importance of staying top of mind with clients 06:58 The referral tree concept and its significance 08:06 The impact of relationship nurturing on business growth 09:04 Starting with platinum clients and personalized communication 10:03 Practical steps to build and maintain your CRM 11:14 The cost of neglecting CRM and relationship strategies 12:14 Creating momentum through consistent client engagement 12:54 Expanding your client base through relationship management 14:09 The importance of regular CRM audits and pruning 15:08 Jim's final advice and encouragement for listeners 16:11 Closing remarks and next steps for building your CRM Resources The Go-Giver by Bob Burg   Jim Miller - Instagram - @askjimmiller

Summary June was a month of reflection on Take Flight, a mid-year audit of what the first two quarters delivered and where the cracks are hiding. Episode 331 closes that arc and turns toward the second half of the year. Jim opens on the farmer's logic that runs underneath everything he teaches. You plant in the spring and harvest in the fall, which means the work you do right now lands six to nine months out, not on next month's paycheck. Real estate is not a business of selling properties. It is a business of building relationships and compounding them over a long career. Borrowing the structure of Brian Moran's The 12 Week Year, Jim frames this moment as Week 13, the point where you celebrate the wins, count the near misses as learning, and plan the quarter ahead. He is candid that Q3 is a trap. You are tired, the year has been long, and the pull to pump the brakes is real. His answer is not to grind harder. It is to be intentional and surgical, taking one project per week and knocking it out, whether that is a couple of hours, thirty minutes, or a single phone call you have been avoiding. The quarter's teaching focus is Pillar 3 of Take Flight, CRM and Relationship Management. Jim makes the case that this is where all real success comes from. Your income is the number of people you serve times the level at which you serve them, and you cannot afford to lose people from your network because they are so hard to replace. 85%-90% of most advisors' business comes from their network, which is why offline marketing, reputation and relationships, outperforms any digital tactic over time. Across Q3 he will get detailed on building a Top 100, setting cadences for platinum, gold, silver, and fringe contacts, and retaining the network while expanding it. Jim closes with the question he puts to every client. Are you interested in being great, or are you committed to it. He points listeners back to the June episodes, 327 through 330, and to episode 254, Think Like a Farmer, as the groundwork for the season ahead. The challenge is simple and singular. This week, name the projects that need to get done in Q3 and commit to running them one at a time. Do the heavy lifting now so your network is in real shape heading into Q4 and Q1. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Take Flight Weekly 02:54 Reflecting on Q1 and Q2 Results 05:48 Preparing for Q3: The Trap Quarter 09:06 The Importance of CRM and Relationship Management 11:49 Commitment to Success and Building Your Network Ask Jim Miller - Email List - mailto:[email protected] Instagram:  @askjimmiller

Summary June is the month to stop and look. A six-month audit is the most valuable two hours an ELP can spend right now. Step out of the business, look at it from the outside, and answer three questions.  What does winning look like?  What plays work every time you run them? What is broken that I can fix in Q3 and Q4? This episode is the answer to the second question, the 7 plays I would run over and over to stabilize a business and most often add real production over the next twelve months. The weekly planning session. The next 10. 1=3.. The pipeline at 150% to 200% of goal. The post-closing process. The three rocks of marketing. And boundaries. Each one maps to a pillar of Take Flight, because this is not a list of tips. It is the framework boiled down in one podcast episode to what actually moves a business. Different advisors sit in different places. The purpose is the same. Build the business so it fits into your life. Filter out the noise. What I give you in this episode are the signals. You just have to run the plays. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Purpose of the Audit 04:54 Seven Plays for Business Success 15:56 Conclusion and Call to Action Resources Jim Miller's Website - https://askjimmiller.com Instagram - @askjimmiller