David runs a $1.4B AUM RIA out of Naperville. He’s a managing partner I’ve consulted with for years. Last November he pinged me with one question that pretty much summed up his whole quarter. “Why is our average advisor still spending 11 hours a week on client admin instead of in front of households?” We […]
Maria runs a 14-provider multi-specialty group in Austin. She sent me her patient acquisition report last October. The numbers told a story. 1,840 new patient inquiries the prior quarter. Confirmed first appointments out of that batch? 612. That’s a 33% inquiry-to-appointment rate against roughly $38,000 in paid acquisition spend. Not awful. But not where it
Daniel runs a 6-attorney personal injury shop in Chicago. Last September he forwarded me his quarterly intake report. Take a guess. 287 phone inquiries the prior quarter. Forty-one signed engagement letters out of that batch. That’s a 14.3% intake conversion rate against roughly $22,000 in paid marketing spend. Not terrible. Not great either. Here’s the
9 Best CRM Software for Real Estate Agents in 2026 (Honest Review) A team leader I coach — Danielle runs a 14-agent buyer-side team in Scottsdale — sent me a screenshot last October. Her Zillow Premier Agent dashboard showed 312 leads delivered the prior quarter. Closed transactions from that batch? Eleven. That’s a 3.5% conversion
A broker friend of mine — Marcus runs a 9-loan-officer independent mortgage shop just outside Charlotte — called me on a Thursday night last March. Voice tight. He’d lost a $640K purchase loan that day because his lead sat in a Gmail folder for 4 days untouched. The borrower? Already locked with a competitor by
A buddy of mine — Renata, runs a 6-producer independent P&C shop just outside Tampa — texted me at 9:47pm last August. Full panic mode. Her agency had jumped from 1,800 to 4,300 active policies in 22 months. The hybrid spreadsheet-plus-Outlook-folder duct tape that got her there finally cracked. Three renewals slipped past their effective
A former colleague of mine — Dean, an RIA principal running a 4-advisor shop just outside Raleigh — called me last March completely fried. His firm had jumped from $78M to $214M AUM in 26 months. The Excel-plus-Outlook duct tape that carried him through the early years had finally given out. He missed a client’s
Last fall, a friend of mine named Marisol — managing broker out of Houston — slid into my Slack with a message I’ve read about a hundred times by now. Her shop had jumped from 28 to 63 agents in 19 months. The CRM holding it together? A mid-market tool with three Zapier patches keeping
Last year a broker friend in Scottsdale called me. He was panicking. His team had jumped from 14 to 41 agents in 18 months, and the spreadsheet-plus-Gmail “system” they’d been running was bleeding leads like a busted pipe under the kitchen sink. His own count? About 32% of inbound buyer leads went cold inside 72
