THE ROOM

I hit my number this month.
I still feel behind.

You hit your number on a Friday with two days left in the month.

By Sunday night you were already tense about next month.

The Last Day of the Month

Two closings and an accepted offer. The number you set in January, divided by twelve, met.

You updated the spreadsheet. You looked at it for a second and felt good, and the feeling lasted about as long as it takes to close a laptop.

You noticed that too. It's the part you'd never say out loud at the office.

Then you scrolled down to next month, which was mostly empty. The beginning of a month is always mostly empty.

Sunday night you were working. Nothing was due. The empty column was sitting there, and working on it was the only thing that made the feeling ease up.

Behind on What?

That's the question you've never asked yourself.

Behind your number? You hit your number. Behind last year? You're ahead of last year. Behind the top producer in your office? You never wanted her life, and you know that.

There's no answer. The feeling says you're behind, but it can't say behind on what. You can't point to a place you're supposed to be and aren't if you don't know where you want to be.

That's why hitting the number didn't touch it, and why a bigger number won't either. You already tested that. You hit a bigger number two years ago and had the same Sunday night.

That's the one real piece of evidence you have. You already ran the experiment. A bigger number didn't change the feeling, and there's no reason to think the next one will.

What the Industry Tells You to Do

The industry's answer is to aim higher. And that's good. Raise the goal. Celebrate the wins. Track the activity that leads to closings, so you're not living deal to deal. Build a team so the number isn't all on you.

Much of that is useful, and you've done a fair amount of it. The team helped. Tracking the right activity helped.

Sunday night stayed the same. The feeling was never about the number being too small. It's about what you expected the number to do for you, and it doesn't do that.

The Numbers Start Over Every Month

Every number in this business starts over. The month starts at zero. The year starts at zero. Your closed sides, your office ranking, and your GCI all go back to nothing on the first, for as long as you do this.

Numbers that start over every month can't tell you that you're doing fine. They can only tell you where you are in a stretch of time that's about to end. That's what they're built to do, and they do it well.

So you try to feel good enough based on something that clears itself twelve times a year. Of course the feeling doesn't last. The numbers can't give you lasting peace.

When you say you feel behind, what you're looking at is the zero at the top of a new month.

Every tool in this business starts over at that zero. The dashboards, the office ranking, the monthly email with everyone's sides on it. None of them is doing anything wrong. They measure a month, and months end and start anew.

What Your Numbers Leave Out

Sunday night isn't the biggest cost here.

Think about what you'd actually be proud of from the last three years. Not the production numbers.

The widower whose house you sold, and the two hours you spent walking his garden. The couple who shouldn't have bought the house they wanted, and you told them so, and they thanked you a year later. The young agent in your office you spent a spring teaching, for nothing.

None of that shows up anywhere. There's no column for it, and nobody ranks agents on it. It doesn't start over, either. Those three things are still true, and they always will be.

That's the real work. Your spreadsheet has been counting what the real work produces.

That doesn't mean the number doesn't matter. It pays for your house. It answers a question about the month. You've been asking it a question about yourself, and it can't answer that one.

Why It Keeps Happening

Your numbers are the only feedback this business gives you on a schedule.

Everything else shows up at random, and often years late. A referral in November from a closing two summers ago. A note from somebody you helped. Nothing in this job tells you on the first of the month that you're doing it right in the ways that count. So the only answer you get is the number, and the number expires.

For an agent who keeps score, this has been true since your first full year. The numbers are how you know whether you're okay. They've been mostly reliable, but they were never built to tell you that.

Nobody in your office would call this a problem, either. An agent who's never satisfied hits numbers. The business rewards that, right up until it stops paying off.

It's the same instinct that has you adding showings and texts while your GCI goes the other way. There, more of what's measured is the only move you see. It's also part of how twenty closings can produce not one referral. The count keeps running, and the people drop off the end of it.

Three Lines Under Your Number

At the end of this month, before you update the spreadsheet, write three lines under it. Three things from the month that nobody is counting.

Told the sellers on Maple the truth about the price in week two. Walked the garden with the man on Elm. Sent Marie the comps she needed and didn't ask for anything.

Then leave them there, and update the number as usual.

Do it again next month, under the new zero. In a year you'll have thirty-six lines that didn't start over, sitting under twelve numbers that did. You'll be able to see which one shows the business you're really building.

Your numbers start over on the first. That list doesn't. It takes four minutes on the last day of the month.

You'll want to skip it in a bad month. That's when the three lines matter most. A bad month on the spreadsheet is often a good month in the things nobody counts.

The Name for This Pattern

This pattern has a name. It's the sixth of the Six Mind Shifts™, Legacy, and its full name is Transaction to Transformation.

A transaction can be counted, and the count starts over. What a client carries away from working with you doesn't start over. It's the only part of the work that keeps adding up. An agent who measures the year in closings alone has been keeping score of the smaller thing.

I wrote about it in The Unforgettable Agent. You'll still set a number, and you should. It just was never going to fix Sunday night.

Every agent loses deals

Most never put a number to it.

Takes about 2 to 3 minutes to find yours.

The Mindset Tax Calculator →

Larry Heathcote is an identity coach for real estate agents, creator of the Six Mind Shifts™ and the Six Decision Drivers™, and author of The Unforgettable Agent. He works on the one thing in every room an agent can actually control: who you are when you sit across from a client.